GTX 1080 Ti vs RTX 2080 Super

In this article, we’re going to review the GTX 1080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Super side by side to find out which GPU will give you the ultimate gaming experience if you’re looking to upgrade your PC.

AMD/Nvidia

Whether you’re toying with the idea of upgrading your graphics card or committed to building your own gaming PC from scratch, your GPU is essential in creating a computer that will deliver excellent performance for high-quality, immersive gaming.

When it comes to the top-of-the-line graphics cards, Nvidia has been the one to beat for a long time now and there’s no sign of them giving up their top spot any time soon. The thing is, graphics cards are an expensive purchase, and if you are building a computer then the cost of components soon starts to add up. With a number of great options to choose from, it’s important to weigh up your options carefully before making a decision.

The GTX 1080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Super are both great GPUs if you’re considering one at the higher-end of the price range, and both have a lot to offer to the enthusiastic gamer. But when it comes down to it, which one has the edge in gaming performance?

We take a look at some of the most important features that you should consider, and we pit our reviews of these two Nvidia graphics cards against each other to determine which one is going to be the best GPU for you and your gaming needs.

Architecture

Based on Nvidia’s Pascal architecture, the GTX 1080 Ti features the new dualFET power system which is the reason behind the chip’s higher efficiency and the fact that its power is much greater than previous Nvidia GPUs. It’s a GPU designed with gaming in mind and it packs a lot of horsepower with a large memory capacity to boot. But more on that later.

The RTX 2080 Super has a base clock speed of 1,650 MHz and, thanks to its advanced Turing architecture, it can be boosted all the way up to 1,815 MHz which is going to deliver fantastic frame rates. It offers a decent improvement on the RTX 2080 which comes clocked at 1,515 MHz and has a boosted clock speed of 1,710 MHz.

With a base clock speed of 1,481 MHz, the boosted clock speed of 1,582 MHz is less of an improvement than you see when you overclock the RTX 2080 Super. This is where the Pascal architecture, whilst arguably the best of its time, is now lacking in comparison.

It’s somewhat surprising considering that the GTX 1080 actually has a larger number of CUDA cores. It comes complete with 3,584 to be exact, along with 224 texture units and 88 ROPs, whereas the RTX 2080 Super only has 3,072 CUDA cores, although this is still an improvement on the original RTX 2080s 2,944 cores.

This can be explained by the fact that the Turing architecture of the RTX 2080 Super is meant to boost the GPU core performance up to 50% more efficiently. It also has special Tensor cores and Ray Tracing cores which is what enables ray tracing abilities on this GPU, so it can handle the extra demands of this without suffering a huge drop in quality.

Cooling

If you’re thinking about overclocking your GPU, the GTX 1080 Ti will have to work a lot harder to keep up with heavier loads, especially if you’re gaming in 4K settings. While it may yield the best results visually, it’ll cause your GPU to run much hotter so you’ll need to seriously consider your cooling system to avoid overheating your card.

There’s also the fact that it has a massive power consumption (TDP) of 250 watts. That’s 100 watts more than the RTX 2080 Super which consumes just 150 watts by comparison. This means it will have higher running costs as well as a higher upfront cost.

During our testing, the maximum temperature we recorded was 84°C which is closer than we’d like to the 89°C it’s capable of handling. The RTX 2080 runs a lot cooler at 78°C, and the fans are also quieter as they produce 47 dB compared to the 54.2 dB of the GTX 1080 Ti.

Dimensions

One area where there isn’t much difference between the GTX 1080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Super is their size and dimensions, so they’ll both be equally as likely to fit on your average board, provided it isn’t too crowded with other components. If it is, you might need to scale back a little bit or consider upgrading your motherboard.

The GTX 1080 Ti measures 267 mm x 112 mm x 40 mm with a dual-slot cooling solution and it’s connected via a PCI-Express 3.0 x 16 interface. The RTX 2080 Super shares the same PCI-Express 3.0 x 16 interface and same length of 267 mm, but it’s just a few millimeters wider at 116 mm in width, and again just slightly thinner with a 35 mm dual-slot cooling solution.

Resolution and Frames Per Second

Nvidia’s RTX cards are going to give you the best performance in terms of frame rates, as they’re known for their super-fast speeds and rapid refresh rates. This results in smoother and more seamless gameplay that will make you feel like you’re truly immersed in the game.

The GTX 1080 Ti gave us some great results at 1080p when we were testing the GPUs so we could compare benchmarks, and it had an average FPS of 129.2 which is pretty fast. However, it’s outperformed here by the RTX 2080 Super as this is capable of an impressive 145.5 FPS which ensures high-quality imagery and fluid motion.

At 1440p they were evenly matched in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, with barely any between them as they took turns providing faster frame rates. Other games, however, saw a larger gap of 9, 10, and 11 in Control, Resident Evil 3, and Gears 5 respectively in the RTX 2080 Super’s favor.

If you want the edge when you increase the settings up to 4K performance, then the 2080 Super delivers an improvement of around 13% on average compared to the GTX 1080 Ti, which is nothing insignificant at this level. These cards are really designed to shine when the settings are cranked up to 4K, and under this load, the RTX 2080 Super once again comes out on top with 67.2 FPS which is faster than the 59.7 FPS of the GTX 1080 Ti.

Ray Tracing?

Ray tracing is where the fun really starts, as this is what Nvidia has been working on to greatly enhance the shadow imagery and incredible graphics. It mimics natural rays of light to create more realistic gameplay than we’ve ever seen before on our monitors.

The RTX-series GPUs debuted this new technology and it comes equipped with special Ray Tracing and Tensor cores to render real-time ray tracing for improved lighting and visuals. It has the added benefit of Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) which works out any kinks or imperfections in the performance using AI. It’s an improvement on anti-aliasing as it doesn’t strain your GPU as much so it won’t negatively affect your frame rates.

Technically you can also get ray tracing on GTX-series graphics cards from Nvidia, but not without accepting a massive hit to your frame rate speeds and an overall dip in quality. It’s fine if you’re not too bothered about ray tracing just yet, as it is still in its infancy, but if you consider the fact that it’s believed to be the next big thing in gaming then you might want to think about future-proofing your GPU, just in case we do see it widely rolled out in the next couple of years.

VRAM

The GTX 1080 TI comes equipped with 11 GB of GDDR5X memory which is an improvement on the earlier GDDR5, and it has an 11 Gbps data transfer rate. It’s Nvidia’s fastest Pascal graphics card, but it’s still no match for the RTX 2080 Super.

By comparison, the RTX 2080 Super has a peak data transfer speed of 15.5 Gbps and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. It might be a smaller capacity, but it’s a more advanced version of memory type that will be able to retrieve images and data much faster than the GTX 1080 Ti.

Conclusion

In terms of price, you might be surprised to learn that the GTX 1080 Ti is actually the more expensive option of the two by about $100. While it’s a perfectly capable graphics card, the RTX 2080 Super is clearly the better value for money option as you’ll get faster speeds and improved performance for a lower price.

There’s also ray tracing to think about. With the GTX 1080 Ti, you can download an Nvidia driver so you’ll be able to utilize their new ray tracing technology which is great if you’re happy to just try it out before it rolls out in full in future titles.

However, if you’re looking for a GPU that will allow you to truly experience all that ray tracing has to offer then you’d be better off with the RTX 2080 Super. The Tensor and Ray Tracing cores are designed to enhance this technology so you’ll see significantly improved results for a fully immersive experience.