Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super review: the 4K GPU shoot-out

Game benchmarks: Hitman 3, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Returnal.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on 31 Jan 2024

Our rasterisation benchmarks come to a conclusion on this final page of tests, where we continue to expect AMD's RDNA 3 cards to be more competitive against their Nvidia 40-class rivals.

Once again, if you're jumping straight to this page without looking at prior results, we should stress that our benchmarking system offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're using. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is an interactive bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Hitman 3

Hitman 3 is staggeringly fast when its RT effects are disabled, to the point where we'd likely be recommending using RT with reconstruction - but it's still a handsome game at native 4K on otherwise ultra settings. It's also AMD-friendly, with an excellent 20 percentage point advantage to the RX 7900 XTX up against 4080 Super. Even the XT is essentially delivering circa 4080 Super-class performance.

I couldn't detect any difference between 4080 and Super at native 4K, but a 36 percentage point lead for the 4090 is clearly significant. Even so, the RX 7900 XTX has around 88 percent of the 4090's non-raster performance, a clear value win.

Hitman, Ultra, TAA

A Plague Tale: Requiem

We had to include this game in our test suite simply because it's so beautiful - a proper next-gen showcase. It's perhaps not surprising that AMD continues to deliver a lead over Nvidia here, with RX 7900 XTX essentially 12-and-a-half percentage points clear of the RTX 4080 Super.

It's getting a bit predictable to point this out right now, but the RTX 4090 is unassailable - it's 41 percentage points clear of the 4080 Super and 23 percent ahead of the XTX. It's a result so high, we checked and double-checked it - but there it is. Of course, you're paying dearly for that privilege, assuming you can find a reasonably priced RTX 4090 in the first place.

A Plague Tale Requiem, Ultra Settings

Returnal

We love the game but we don't enjoy the stutter - something which the benchmark has none of whatsoever. Once again, AMD emerges triumphant within the 4080-class pricing range, with the customary 12 point lead over the new Super.

Once again, there's basically no difference between 4080 and 4080 Super, which makes you wonder a little why Nvidia added CUDA cores and faster memory at all when this is clearly more of a price cut than a meaningfully different product. And with an Agent Smith-inspired sound of inevitability, RTX 4090 is untouchable - 29 points clear of 4080 Super, 15 ahead of 7900 XTX.

Returnal, Epic Settings

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Since we've got Miles Morales in our RT and reconstruction categories, why not rasterisation too? This one's interesting as this 'addendum' to our rasterisation suite actually sees the RTX 4080 Super score a rare win over the 7900 XTX - it's only around three to four percent on average, but it is there regardless.

A 116fps average looks pretty good for 4080 Super, but the full RT suite and 4K DLSS quality mode isn't far behind at 98fps (#JustSayin'). Meanwhile, a 4.5 percent lead for the Super over vanilla 4080 must be the biggest differential spotted so far... and it's still essentially unnoticeable during the run of play. RTX 4090? 29 points ahead... again.