GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs GeForce RTX 4090

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce RTX 4090, which has a GPU core clock speed of 2235 MHz, and 24576 MB of GDDR6X RAM set to run at 1325 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 16384 SPUs, 512 Texture Address Units, and 176 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
GeForce RTX 4090		450 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (29%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 4090 will be 12% quicker than the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce RTX 4090		1042432 MB/sec
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
	Difference: 108134 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 4090 will be much (more or less 224%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB. (explain)

GeForce RTX 4090		1144320 Mtexels/sec
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 791520 (224%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 4090 is much (more or less 179%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce RTX 4090		393360 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 252240 (179%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.