Back in October 2022, Nvidia finally started gracing PC enthusiasts with it’s long awaited 40 series GPUs, releasing the RTX 4090 24GB. Roughly a month after, we were presented with its younger brother, the RTX 4080 16GB. Previously at Game On we compared the RTX 4090 to its cousin the RTX 3090 to see how they stack up at 1440p, now it’s time to do the same with the RTX 4080 and the RTX 3080.

In today’s article’s we’ll be testing out six (6) AAA titles at 1440p to see if the RTX 4080 really is that much better than its predecessor even at 1440p.

THE GAMES

Since today’s article pertains to gaming at a higher resolution, we’ve decided to focus on the results obtained on AAA titles, as this is the category where players are more inclined to want a better image quality.

Here are the titles we tested:

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Each game was tested at 1440p resolution with the highest graphic settings. All games had Ray tracing turned on. DLSS2 was used on RTX 3090 and DLSS3 on RTX 4090 when available.

The charts below show the FPS obtained for each game when running the in-game benchmark mode.

Microsoft Flight Simulator benchmark was obtained by noting the average FPS showed on screen over the course of a 5-minute flight, as the game does not possess a benchmark mode.

THE BUILD

In today’s article we’ll be comparing the RTX 4080 16GB and its predecessor the RTX 3080 10GB at 1440p on an 12^th gen i9 configuration.

We are showing the benchmarks results obtained on our Tower Pro gaming PC. More precisely, here is the configuration that we tested:

Tower Pro core configuration (buy it here):

– Intel Core i9-12900k
– 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance 5600 MHz DDR5
– 2 x 1TB m.2 PCIe SSD by Western Digital SN750
– 1000-watt Gold PSU by Corsair
– Windows 10 Home

Along with this configuration, we tested the following graphics cards by ASUS TUF:

– GeForce RTX 3080 10GB
– GeForce RTX 4080 16GB

The RTX 4080 really outshines its predecessor the RTX 3080

Looking at this set of results, the RTX 4080 seems to show consistent improvement overall. Only Horizon Zero Dawn showed under 10% improvement between the two GPUs. Even Microsoft Flight Simulator showed a 17% improvement, with RTX 4080 managing an extra 15 FPS. F1 2022 was the game who showed the best improvement, with the RTX 4080 going up to 144 FPS which makes from a 52%. Borderlands 3, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 all showed around 30% improvement bringing them all way above 120 FPS.

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Compared to the results previously obtained with the RTX 4090 (link to that at the end of article), the improvement shown by upgrading from the RTX 3080 to the RTX 4080 is more impressive overall. Out of our six games, only Horizon Zero Dawn showed little improvement, but even then, the RTX 3080 is already able to manage an impressive 177 FPS. As we’ve mentioned previously in other articles, according to our research, 60 FPS is usually enough for the average player to have a great experience when it comes to AAA titles, so the RTX 3080 could be quite enough even at 1440p.

However, if you’re looking for a truly immersive experience, the RTX 4080 allows you to reach over 120 FPS in most games even at this high resolution and the improved DLSS3 along with better ray tracing make the gameplay that much more enjoyable. Therefore, the upgrade could be totally worth it after all. It also seems that the RTX 4080 isn’t held back much by the 12^th gen processor, which means you could save a couple hundred dollars by not having to shell out for the newest 13^th gen CPUs in order to unlock the power of your RTX 4080.

CONCLUSION: How much more performance does the RTX 4080 offer compared to the RTX 3080 in 1440p?

All in all, we can see with the results presented above that even though  both the RTX 3080 and RTX 4080 are able to perform very well at 1440p, the RTX 4080 shows a considerable and consistent improvement in the AAA category even at 1440p.

It also seems that an 12^th gen i9 might be just enough to enjoy the power of the RTX 4080.

Nonetheless, considering the current price of the 40 series, you might be better off just getting a RTX 4090.

Just like in our previous article comparing the RTX 3090 to the RTX4090, it’s important to consider not only the framerate improvement brought on by the GPU upgrade but also the upgrade to the overall image quality visible with these new 40 series GPUs.

We hope that this article helped you better understand the capabilities of the RTX 4080 compared to the RTX 3080 when it comes to gaming in 1440p.

You can find our article comparing the RTX 4090 and RTX 3090 in 1440p here.

If you have any questions about the results presented here or maybe other configurations, feel free to reach out to us on our socials.

You can check out our article benchmarking the RTX 4090 24GB in more detail here

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Thanks for reading!

GLHF