Technical features of NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super, comparison with other video cards, advantages and disadvantages, cost and profitability.
When NVIDIA announced its updated Super RTX graphics cards earlier this month, the focus was on the "mid-range" RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super devices. For just $399 and $499, the company offered significantly higher speeds than their predecessors, both models not inferior to the latest AMD Radeon.
However, there is still a video card RTX 2080 Super, which is an analog of RTX 2080 at a price of $799. Based on her specs alone, the device didn't seem like a huge leap forward. And this is confirmed by the tests.
| Cons | Pros |
|---|---|
| Slightly faster than the RTX 2080 at the same price. | NVIDIA mid-range SuperCard with excellent quality. |
| Solid 1440p and 4K performance. | Need more ray tracing games to justify the high cost. |
| A better option for $ 700 than Radeon VII. |
First, let's go through the improvements made. The RTX 2080 Super has 3072 CUDA cores – the number of parallel processors built into the GPU, compared to 2944 on the original card. Similarly, the clock rate, which was only partially increased: the Super card has a base clock frequency of 1650 MHz and a gain of 1815 MHz compared to 1515 MHz / 1710 MHz.
It is disappointing that the 2080 Super has only two RT (ray tracing) cores, compared to 46, and eight more cores responsible for textures.
| RTX 2060 SUPER | RTX 2070 SUPER | RTX 2080 SUPER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA kernel | 2,176 | 2,56 | 3,072 |
| Base clock (reference frequency) | 1,470 MHz | 1,605 MHz | 1,650 MHz |
| Boost clock (memory clock) | 1,650 MHz | 1,770 MHz | 1,815 MHz |
| Tensor FLOPS | 57.4 TFLOPS | 89.2 TFLOPS | 72 TFLOPS |
| Memory | 8GB | 8GB | 8GB |
| TDP (power) | 175W | 215W | 250W |
While it's nice to own a slightly faster card, it's clear that NVIDIA has reserved more significant upgrades for the new mid-tier GPUs. The 2060 Super got an extra 2GB of RAM, while 2070 runs on a slow-motion version of the original 2080 hardware.
2080 Super, unfortunately, does not give anything more impressive. It's not hard to see why: NVIDIA had to put on the market a slightly faster device than before, but at the same time did not want to infringe on the $ 999 RTX 2080 Ti GPU, which remains its flagship offering. Given that the novel RTX 2080 is already impressive, there is simply no room for innovation.
| HITMAN 2 | WITCHER 3 | DMARK TIMESPY/TIMESPY EXTREME | PORT ROYAL (RAY TRACING) | DESTINY 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 2080 Super | 61 fps | 63-70 fps | 10,632/4,905 | 6,776/31 fps | 85-105 fps |
| RTX 2070 Super | 54 fps | 55-62 fps | 9,706/4,474 | 5,845 /27 fps | 80-95 fps |
| RTX 2080 Ti | 70 fps | 75-85 fps | 12,379/5,761 | 8,601/40 fps | 90-110 fps |
| RTX 2060 Super | 45 fps | 48-53 fps | 8,574/4,015 | 4,974 /23 fps | N/A |
| Radeon 5700 XT | 45 fps | 48-52 fps | 8,506/3,871 | N/A | N/A |
All games have been tested in 4K/HDR format with the highest graphics quality settings on a platform with Intel Core i7-8700K processor and 16GB of RAM on ASUS ROG Strix z370-e motherboard.
The tests met our expectations for the RTX 2080 Super hardware. This graphics card is a bit faster than the 2070 Super, but for the most part, it isn't worth the extra $ 199. The 2080 Super at 60 frames per second with a clear advantage wins the Hitman 2 “Mumbai " test at 4K, but the 2070 Super still scored a respectable (and very playable) 54 FPS.
Compared to the original 2080, the new map is an even smaller leap forward. Playing Destiny 2 in 4K with the settings cranked to the max, the 2080 Super reached 85-105 frames per second, while the previous GPU showed 80-100 frames per second. It's not a difference you'll really notice when playing.
RTX 2080
Even when it comes to real-time ray tracing, which is capable of providing more realistic lighting and shadows, the RTX 2080 Super is not such a big step forward.
The Shadow of the Tomb Raider test with ultra-ray tracing enabled showed 43 frames a second, a slight jump from 38 frames per second at 2070 Super.
However, in terms of performance in future games is where to go. In the 3DMark Port Royale test, which was conducted using ray tracing technology, the 2080 Super (6777) scored almost 1,000 points more than the 2070 Super, which scored 5845 points.
Considering the cost, which was appointed on NVIDIA cards 2060 and 2070 Super, no wonder 2080 Super hard to justify itself. But as with the original 2080, this card is worth it if you can't buy the RTX 2080 Ti for $999.
This graphics card is almost as fast, it will allow you to play 4K in most games. However, most gamers would be better off with mid-tier cards, especially after a little overclocking.