The fall-out from Nvidia’s RTX 4080/4090 reveal last week has been intense. We saw the reveal of the RTX 4090 – a phenomenally achievement in performance – backed by the debut of pioneering new technology like DLSS 3 frame generation, the remarkable RTX Remix and a new version of Cyberpunk 2077 that is to all intents and purposes running with full path-tracing. The technology is there to move PC gaming onto a new level but reaction to the keynote has instead been dominated by RTX 4080 pricing. Two RTX 4080s of very different spec levels are coming – priced at $899 and $1199 respectively – and based on reaction to Nvidia’s own benchmarks, there’s a performance gulf between them and an ‘fps per dollar’ deficit compared to prior gen-on-gen leaps.
There’s still much we don’t know. Nvidia’s numbers cover a mere handful of games – so the actual value of RTX 4080 in its dual guises can only really be ascertained via hands-on testing with a much wider array of titles, plus the take-up of DLSS 3. What is clear, however, is that the nature of an 80 series card has radically altered. Looking back to RTX 3080, it used a cut-down version of 3090 and 3090 Ti silicon, the GA102 processor. Both 4080 cards use different, smaller processors – AD103 and AD104 vs the much larger AD102 in the 4090 – and so the expectation is a significantly wider delta between 80 class and 90 class performance this time around. The differences in RTX 4080’s compute power and memory bandwidth are remarkable, both against the 4090 and each other. With that in mind, it is difficult to understand why two such different products both receive 4080 naming. Factoring out DLSS 3, only the RTX 4090 seems to offer a substantial gen-on-gen improvement, based on Nvidia’s own numbers.
Part of the discussion in DF Direct Weekly this week covers the various reasons why this is happening. The backlash puts the blame squarely on Nvidia for over-pricing its products, for ‘rebadging’ a prospective RTX 4070 as an RTX 4080 in order to deliver an 80-class product for under a thousand dollars. However, last week, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang delivered a stark message: that cost reductions on performance, or the same performance for half the cost with a new generation are a thing of the past.
