Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB gaming and synthetic benchmarks leak online

Nvidia's shiny new Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is will be available for purchase in less than a week (October 12). While it is undoubtedly one of the best models one can buy, its US$1,600+ price tag puts it beyond the reach of most users. Its younger, more affordable sibling, the GeForce RTX 4080 isn't due to hit shelves until November 2022.

Some benchmarks of the graphics card have now been leaked online on Chiphell, allowing buyers to make an informed decision about their purchase well ahead of time. The GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB sample was paired with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 64 GB of RAM. AIDA64's GPU benchmark essentially confirmed that the RTX 4080 here is indeed what the poster claims it is, complete with 76 SMs and a boost clock of 2.5 GHz.

Prolific leaker Kopite7Kimi said back in July that the GeForce RTX 4080 would net around 15,000 points in the 3D Mark Time Spy Extreme benchmark. However, the sample in question here scores only 13,977. One can chalk it down to the card's TGP being revised from 420 W to 320 W and janky drivers. It's best to reserve judgement until more reviews surface. The reviewer also put the GeForce RTX 4080 sample through 3D Mark Port Royal (17,607) and 3D Mark Fire Strike Ultra (17,209).

Moving on to gaming, the GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB managed outputted an average of 128 frames per second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 4K with DLSS set to "Quality". The benchmark suggested that the game was GPU bound, suggesting that it might not be suitable for 4K gaming. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the graphics card can output up to 220 FPS and 226 FPS with DLSS switched off and set to Quality, respectively.

Overall, one can expect the GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB to be about 50% faster than the RTX 3080 10 GB in gaming. While that is a respectable increase in generation-over-generation performance, its eye-watering US$1,100+ price tag will make it inaccessible to many gamers on a tight budget, who will then be forced to look at the totally-not-a-GeForce-RTX-4070-Ti GeForce RTX 4080 12 GB.

Buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 on Amazon