NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Review: Ada Lovelace For Enthusiasts

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker launched at the end of last year, and as usual, Square-Enix updated its free character creator and benchmark tool. The free utility checks in at approximately a 2.21GB download. It will test your PC's ability to run the game at various settings, and presents a final result with an overall rating upon its conclusion. We tested Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker at 1440p and in 4K UHD, with maximum image quality settings.

Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Benchmarks

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Final Fantasy Endwalker

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This benchmark is somewhat CPU bound at 1440p, but the familiar performance cadence we've seen up to this point continues. The GeForce RTX 4080s remain head-and-shoulders above any previous-generation card, and only the GeForce RTX 4090 is faster.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla Benchmarks

The open-world Assassin's Creed Valhalla is an action-adventure game in which the player controls Viking raider Eivor Varinsdottir as he and his compatriots battle Anglo-Saxons through various regions. The games uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine, which requires DirectX 12...

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

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MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X Details @ 4K

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Our performance results with Assassins Creed: Valhalla look similar to every other test we've run up to this point. The new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards outperformed everything, at both resolutions, save for the RTX 4090, and MSI's card remains a touch faster than the Founders Edition.

Forza Horizon 5 Benchmarks

Forza Horizon 5 is the latest edition of the popular racing game franchise. The game features much larger maps than its predecessors, with more detailed models, and higher graphics fidelity in general. Forza 5 leverages the proprietary ForzaTech engine and DirectX 12...

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Forza Horizon 5

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Forza Horizon 5 didn't reveal any surprises either. In this game, the new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards once again finished in the second and third positions, trailing only the GeForce RTX 4090.

Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is an action-adventure game where you play as Star-Lord and lead the rest of the Guardians from mission to mission. The game’s minimum requirements call for a Radeon RX 570 or GeForce GTX 1060-class GPU, but it also supports some of the latest graphics technologies, including DXR and DLSS.

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Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy

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MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X Details @ 4K

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When running at 1440p, Guardians is essentially CPU bound. As such, we see some different performance characteristics, and the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is able to overtake the MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X -- technically speaking. With the resolution increased to 4K, however, and more of the bottleneck shifting to the GPU, this game behaves just like all the others and the new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards finish where you would expect.

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MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X Details @ 4K w/ RT


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With ray tracing enabled in this game, we fall back into familiar territory. The MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X slightly outruns NVIDIA's Founders Edition card at both resolutions, but neither can catch the more powerful RTX 4090.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks

Next up, we’ve got some benchmark scores from Far Cry 6, the latest installment in the storied franchise. Like its predecessors, Far Cry 6 is a fast-action shooter set in an open world environment with lush visuals and high graphics fidelity. The game is set on the fictional Caribbean island of Yara, ruled by dictator "El Presidente" Antón Castillo, famously played by actor Giancarlo Esposito. We tested all of the graphics cards here at multiple resolutions using Ultra Quality settings to see how they handled this AAA title.

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Far Cry 6

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MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X Details @ 4K

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With any ray tracing effects enabled, FarCry 6 is somewhat CPU bound when testing at 1440p. Even then, the game reports similar results to all of the rest, with the GeForce RTX 4090 ruling the roost, and the new GeForce RTX 4080 series cards outgunning all the rest.

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GeForce RTX 4090 Details @ 4K w/ RT

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With ray tracing enabled, this game remains CPU bound at 1440p, but with the resolution increased to 4K, the familiar performance trend we've seen up to this point continues.

F1 2021 & F1 2022 Benchmarks

F1 2022 is Codemaster’s latest Formula One racing simulation, and like previous version of the game, it sports impressive visuals. This latest addition to the franchise supports DirectX 12 with ray tracing, and it incorporates support for a number of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and NVIDIA technologies (like DLSS). We tested the games with its Ultra High graphics preset, with ray-tracing and TAA enabled at a couple of resolutions to see what the graphics cards could do.

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F1 2021 / F1 2022

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We tested both F1 2021 and a beta release of F1 2022, which has support for NVIDIA's DLSS 3 technology, including AI Frame Generation. F1 2021 reports similar results to all of the rest, with the GeForce RTX 4080s, once again, finishing in the second and third positions.

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In the newer, more taxing F1 2022, the framerates are somewhat lower, but we still see more of the same. The GeForce RTX 4090 retains its overall lead, with the RTX 4080 cards outperforming all of the rest.

DLSS 3 And Latency Testing With The MSI Suprim X

We also tested F1 2022 and a couple of additional games—namely A Plague Tale: Requiem and Fortnite—with the various DLSS 3 modes available. Please note, all of these games were also tested with beta builds, updated to support DLSS 3 with resolution scaling and AI Frame Generation options.

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DLSS resolution scaling in its various modes boosts F1 2022 performance significantly. The new GeForce RTX 4080 clearly outperforms the previous-gen GeForce RTX 3090 Ti here with only resolution scaling enabled. And that lead grows once Frame Generation is enabled as well. Of course, the more powerful GeForce RTX 4090 remains in the overall lead, as you would expect.

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A Plague Tale: Requiem is more CPU bound than F1 2022, so we saw somewhat larger performance gains with AI Frame Generation enabled. Still, the performance trend doesn't change. The GeForce RTX 4080 is clearly faster than the RTX 3090 Ti.

plague latency tests

One this to consider with AI Frame Generation at the performance levels offered by the GeForce RTX 4080 is that overall latency may be impacted. When resolution scaling alone, the various DLSS mode ultimately improve latency. With AI Frame Generation enabled, however, only Performance mode offered better latency than the native resolution. Something to keep in mind with AI Frame Generation is that the game isn't responsive to input when the generated frames are inserted in the animation. As such, some latency is introduced.

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Finally, we did some DLSS and Latency testing with Fortnite. Please note while looking at these three charts above, that the scales are different between the Ampere-based RTX 3090 Ti and the Ada-based RTX 40 series cards. Framerates are off to to the right, and latency at the various modes are to the left.  As you can see, the GeForce RTX 4080 and 4090 cards once again clearly outrun the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti with much better 1% low and average framerates. And the various DLSS modes only increase performance over native. Despite the additional processing going on with DLSS, the increased framerates also end up reducing overall latency.

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