GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs GeForce RTX 4090

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce RTX 4090, which comes with a clock frequency of 2235 MHz and a GDDR6X memory speed of 1325 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 4 nm design. It features 16384 SPUs, 512 Texture Address Units, and 176 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically, the GeForce RTX 4090 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 4090 should be quite a bit (more or less 224%) better at anisotropic 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 will be quite a bit (about 179%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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