Nvidia's 4x Performance Gains for RTX 4000 GPUs Deflate Without DLSS
pcmag.comIf you believe Nvidia, its upcoming GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards will offer a two- to four-times performance increase over its last-generation GPUs. But a benchmark from the company is poking a hole in some of those claims.
After Nvidia announced the products, it released an image that shows the performance gains consumers can expect from next-generation GPUs, which will span three models: The RTX 4080 12GB, the RTX 4080 16GB, and the RTX 4090.
The benchmark compares the new crop of graphics cards against an RTX 3090 Ti, which launched in March for $1,999 as the most powerful model in the older RTX 3000 series.
Nvidia has been happy to boast that the RTX 4090 will offer a two- to four-times performance gain over the RTX 3090 Ti, which sounds like an enticing selling point. The same benchmark—which tested the games on the highest settings running at 4K—even shows the RTX 4080 models handily beating the older GPU by a huge margin.
But if you look closely, the RTX 4090 can only offer a 4x improvement for so-called “next-generation titles.” This includes an upcoming version of Cyberpunk 2077 that adds a new “Overdrive RT mode” for better graphics and Nvidia’s own tech demo, Racer RTX, which isn’t even a real game.
On existing PC titles, performance gains fall to 2x; the RTX 4090 drops even lower. It's also interesting to note how the gap between RTX 4080 models and the RTX 3090 Ti begins to close for currently available games. In fact, the 12GB RTX 4080 model can underperform against the 3090 Ti.
The GPU maker also held a Q&A(Opens in a new window) on Reddit, where it revealed the biggest gains in the benchmark are dependent on frame-rate boosting DLSS technology ratcheting up performance.
“This chart has DLSS
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