We've run the numbers and Nvidia's RTX 4080 cards don't add up
And so it begins. The next-gen graphics fest we've all been waiting for is here. And yet I'm already massively disappointed. Nvidia has pulled the wraps off its new RTX 40-series graphics, otherwise known as Ada Lovelace, and the numbers don't add up.
The top-end RTX 4090(opens in new tab) board and the AD102 GPU it contains look great from a technical perspective. But what Nvidia is doing with the two RTX 4080 boards(opens in new tab) is deeply, deeply disappointing, perhaps even cynical. Let's demonstrate that with numbers. Lots of numbers.
When Nvidia launched the existing Ampere generation and the RTX 30-series roughly two years ago, the RTX 3080(opens in new tab) series board was a slightly cut-down version of the RTX 3090 using the same GA102 chip and with around 80% of the functional units of its bigger sibling. In turn, the RTX 3070 used the next-tier GA104 GPU and delivered in the region of 55% of the hardware of the RTX 3090.
Now compare that with the new Ada Lovelace series. The RTX 4080 12GB uses the AD104 chip and offers just 45% of the functional units of the RTX 4090. To give one obvious example, it packs well under half the shaders of the RTX 4090—7,680 compared with 16,384. For the RTX 3080 versus the RTX 3090, it was 8,704 shaders compared with 10,496. That's 80% of the shader count.
In terms of its relationship with the RTX 4090, the new RTX 4080 12GB is more akin to the RTX 3060 Ti with its 4,864 shaders. Except the RTX 3060 Ti at least had a 256-bit memory bus. The RTX 4080 12GB only has a 192-bit bus. Oh, and the RTX 4080 is $900.
Seriously? A $900 card with a 192-bit bus? The RTX 4080 16GB admittedly is a bit better, what with its 256-bit bus and based on the AD103 chip rather than AD104. But it's
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