Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super - the Digital Foundry verdict

A welcome performance bump - but RTX 2080 Ti is still the undisputed king of the hill.

Richard Leadbetter avatar
Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry
Updated on
41 comments

Nvidia may well have been in a tight spot in coming up with a Super version of the existing RTX 2080. With 2060S and 2070S, the firm had the latitude to access features and silicon from the existing, more powerful 2070 and 2080 products, but for obvious reasons, Nvidia couldn't repeat the same trick here and leverage RTX 2080 Ti's TU102 silicon. To do so would effectively make a prospective RTX 2080 Super too powerful, taking sales away from the Ti, which has no incoming replacement - nor any competition whatsoever from AMD. With that in mind, sticking with the TU104 processor was the only route available, with a modicum of extra CUDA cores and boost frequency, paired with the fastest GDDR6 memory on the market.

Clearly it does the job, but the end result is a product that does what it needs to, but not much more - you can think of it as either a 10 per cent performance increase over the older reference 2080 for the same price, or else a $100 price drop on the 2080 Founders Edition, with the added bonus of a five to six per cent uplift in frame-rates. It also serves another purpose: the older RTX 2080 perhaps sat too close to the still-excellent GTX 1080 Ti in performance terms in too many games. The new Super puts some welcome distance between a 2080-level card and the last-gen top-tier Ti.

There isn't quite the same wow factor in terms of value as there is with the RTX 2060 Super or its 2070 Super stablemate - and I still consider the $499 2070 Super as something of a winner, sitting in the same ballpark as Radeon 7 or GTX 1080 Ti at a nice price point. Up against RTX 2080 Super, an extra $200 buys you around 15 per cent more performance at 4K, typically dropping a few points at 1440p. Clearly, the 2080S is still considered a premium product by Nvidia, considering the 40 per cent price increase over its stablemate that's not matched by anything like the same increase in performance terms.

Overclocking the 2080 Super is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I found the core to be unstable at anything much above 2050MHz, while core offsets over +100MHz added instability and not much more actual frequency. On the other hand, the memory overclocking available on the GDDR6 is remarkable, and while the benchmarks may not suggest a big uplift in performance, I suspect that bandwidth intensive scenes - screen-filling explosions and the like - may benefit significantly.

DLSS
TAA
When comparing DLSS against a native 4K image with temporal anti-aliasing, the results seem mixed initially. Ghosting is eliminated, in-surface aliasing reduced and transparencies slightly improved but it's clear that the overall pixel count is reduced.
DLSS
TAA
When viewing a long-distance shot, however, the two stack up favourably. Foliage appears slightly sharper with TAA but the overall image looks remarkably close when using DLSS.
DLSS
TAA
In this example, DLSS offers a noticeably cleaner and slightly sharper image overall though some details, such as the Regalia text on the rear of the car, appear sharper when using TAA at 4K.
DLSS
TAA
DLSS stacks up well in close-ups too. Edges are a tad softer but remain clear and clean.
DLSS
TAA
Hair rendering appears cleaner with DLSS enabled but trees exhibit an almost sharpened appearance over the standard TAA. Specular aliasing remains an issue in both instances.
DLSS
TAA
This final shot was snapped one frame after a camera cut and it reveals the raw, underlying image. In the case of TAA, the image is extremely sharp but exhibits noticeable aliasing. There is some sort of smoothing occurring on the DLSS side, but pixel-counting confirms 1440p. However, do note that this is an untreated DLSS image and not representative of the in-game look.
DLSS
TAA
This initial scene is close on first examination but the blue-ish pattern textured across the center of the room exhibits a moire pattern when using DLSS. Still, in motion, the two appear very similar - and of course, DLSS has a 35-40 per cent performance uptick.
DLSS
TAA
Close-up shots reveal a slight increase in sub-pixel detail when using the default TAA but, in practice, it appears virtually identical. This sort of post-heavy image is a perfect fit for DLSS.
DLSS
TAA
DLSS isn't perfect - but it's software, with room to improve, and TAA isn't completely ideal either. Sometimes the results between them are too close to call.

In terms of why you would buy an RTX 2080 Super and what purpose it serves, the product does find itself in something of a strange position, similar to its predecessor. The price vs performance ratio isn't favourable compared to the rest of the RTX Super stack, while those looking for the best of the best will still likely lay down the extra money for the still-untouchable RTX 2080 Ti. This is a 4K-capable GPU, but the RTX 2070 Super delivers the price/perf sweet spot and is less likely to be CPU-bound at 1440p. Maybe partner cards will be able to deliver the power - and the BIOS tweaks - to push the TU104 processor beyond the 2.05GHz ceiling I encountered on this Founders Edition and to bring something closer to RTX 2080 Ti stock performance.

Looking back over the Super project in general, Nvidia is likely satisfied with the way the launch has played out - despite the last-minute AMD Navi price-cut. A more substantial 'price cut' on the RTX 2080 Super would have gone a long way, but even with prices as they are, it does enough to efficiently see off Radeon 7 at the same price and beyond that, Nvidia's only other competition is itself. Bar some AMD-friendly engines, the RTX 2060 Super effectively sits on close to level pegging with RX 5700 while delivering more modern rendering features, while the RTX 2070 Super delivers excellent 1440p gaming - and 4K performance that's within spitting distance of GTX 1080 Ti and Radeon 7. The lack of downward momentum on prices on the top two products is what it is - the unchallenged incumbent simply doesn't need to disrupt the status quo.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Analysis

Read this next