NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Review: Ada Lovelace For Enthusiasts

3DMark Time Spy is a synthetic DirectX benchmark test from UL. It features a DirectX 12 engine built from the ground up to support bleeding-edge features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading. Time Spy is designed to test the DX12 performance of the latest graphics cards using a variety of techniques and varied visual sequences. This benchmark was developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of the UL Benchmark Development Program, to showcase the performance and visual potential of graphics cards driven by close-to-the-metal, low-overhead APIs.

UL 3DMark Time Spy DX12 Benchmarks

As we move on to some gaming and graphics tests, we see the GeForce RTX 4080 cards falling into a similar position. In 3DMark Time Spy, the MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X was somewhat faster than NVIDIA's Founders Edition card, due to its higher boost clocks, but neither card could catch the RTX 4090.

UL 3DMark Port Royal Ray Tracing Benchmarks

Port Royal was released as an update to UL’s popular 3DMark suite. It is designed to test real-time ray tracing performance of graphics cards that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing, or DXR. Although DXR is technically compatible with all DX12-class GPUs, the graphics card must have drivers that enable support for the feature.

The new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards clearly outran all of the previous-gen cards in the Port Royal benchmark, however, the GeForce RTX 4090 continues to hold onto a commanding lead.

DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) Feature Test

We also tested the cards with UL's DirectX Ray Tracing Feature test. This test is laser-focused on path-tracing performance, and uses few of the card's other resources.
When running a pure ray tracing test, the performance trend we've seen up to this point continues. The MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X had a slight edge over NVIDIA's own card, and both crushed all of the previous-gen cards (especially the Radeon RX 6900 XT), but the GeForce RTX 4090 remains in a class all its own.

Crytek Neon Noir Benchmarks

The Crytek Neon Noir benchmark doesn't reveal any surprises. Once again we see the new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards outgunning the older competition, but trailing the GeForce RTX 4090.

VR Benchmarks: VR Mark & Unigine Superposition

Superposition is the latest benchmark from Unigine, powered by the UNIGINE 2 Engine. It offers an array of benchmark modes, targeting gaming workloads as well as VR, with both DirectX and OpenGL code paths. There is an extreme hardware stability test built-in too. Unigine Superposition uses the developer’s unique SSRTGI (Screen-Space Ray-Traced Global Illumination) dynamic lighting technology, along with high quality textures and models, to produce some excellent visuals. We ran Superposition's VR Future benchmark to compare the performance of all of the graphics cards featured here.

Unigine Superposition VR Future Test

In our first VR-related benchmarks, Superposition tells essentially the same story as everything else we've run up to this point. The MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X slightly edges out NVIDIA's card, and the GeForce RTX 4090 continues to reign supreme. The overall score is bounded at a score of 10,000.

UL VR Mark Blue Room Benchmarks

UL's VRMark is designed to test a PC’s readiness for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets. The benchmark does not, however, require that one of the headsets is attached to the PC to run and it uses an in-house graphics engine and content to ensure comparable results between different platforms. We ran the "Blue Room" VRMark test at defaults settings here, which is currently the most taxing test offered by the tool.


VRMark has the new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards performing right on top of each other, in the familiar 2 - 3 positions, trailing only the higher-end, pricier GeForce RTX 4090.