NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER review - Conclusion

Final words and verdict

NVIDIA refreshed the RTX 2080. It has 128 more shader procs, gets some very snazzy Samsung GDDR6 memory (quite tweakable too) and fooled around with the base clock and a hint on the turbo clock a bit. All in all that results in a notch more performance over the default RTX 2080:

The graph above basically averages out a handful of games comparing the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Super. I do have to state that the resolution there is Ultra HD, totally GPU bound you obviously will see the strength of the Super better. Let's call it roughly a 10% performance increase. The performance level overall is at a level that is quite acceptable for Ultra HD gaming. For RTX modes on +  a bit of DLSS you likely will end up in the 2560x1440 region. So overall that's not bad. You also need to realize that NVIDIA shaved off a 100 bucks of the introduction price of that 'older' RTX 2080. So the Super models are cheaper overall, whether that is a founders/reference card or the AIB board partner cards. Talking AIB, here again, better factory tweaks are going to be applied. We expect another 5% extra performance overall. Considering this is the next best thing to the 2080 Ti, it really is a good card. And yes I understand that the price is still a crazy amount of money. 

Aesthetics

RTX Founders edition cards are very nice looking cards, aside from the new Super logo and a mirror finish underneath it, nothing has changed from a visual perspective. We like this metal and black design. The cards have a very nice looking backplate, however, it is one that will trap heat. The dual-fan design makes total sense, and I wish some other companies would follow that trend. Taste differs, of course, luckily there are a dozen AIB partners that will have multiple designs available as well. 

Cooling & Noise Levels

Both cards top out at almost 75 Degrees C range while gaming. So that's not bad at all, especially considering the acoustics. The cooler design works well, the cards remain at very acceptable acoustic levels. Only proper board partner cards will offer better results. We've heard no noticeable coil whine. But I do want to note that any graphics card at a high-enough FPS will make some coil-whine. 

Overclocking

Anything and everything is regulated by NVIDIA these days. Speaking, in general, you can expect another 10% of extra perf out of both cards when you bump up the graphics memory and GPU a bit. That is, however, paired with an increased board power limiter and, as such, that will cost a bit more energy. Both traditional overclocking, as well as the OC Scanner functions, bring us close to that value. In retrospect though, you have to remember, that the 'older' RTX models could also be tweaked to 15~16 Gbps on that GDDR6 Micron memory. This new 2080 Super model has Samsung GDDR6 and it certainly is faster overall as well as tweaking. We could even hit 18 GHz, however, that was not stable. So we settled at 17.7 GHz (effective data-rate) and that is crazy fast. 

Concluding

So if you bought an RTX 2080 last or this year, this release might be a bit of a bummer (or not). Not only did NVIDIA make the card faster, but they also made is cheaper as well (compared to the founders RTX 2080 which launched at 799 USD). Our perspective obviously needs to be what NVIDIA puts on the table today, and we have to state that it didn't disappoint. The high-end/enthusiast bracket always has been in that 699 USD ballpark, and the RTX 2080 finally arrived at it. While 699 USD still is a hell of lot 'o-money, the price does feel more 'right' compared to what NVIDIA did last year.  This card offers good solid shader performance, and for a bit of fun and giggles, you get to play around with RTX/DLSS if you desire. While we can still argue DLSS and RTX you do need to realize that the industry is at a clipping point, hardware-based ray tracing is coming, whether that is NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. You probably still are paying a price premium to be that early adopter with a handful of games to actually test it on. But you can't blame NVIDIA for pioneering with technology. You can blame them for overcharging graphics cards though. And that has to be the conclusion for today, the current state of the Super lineup is much better then what happened last year. They refreshed the RTX 2080 to be faster and cheaper, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, it ain't anything revolutionary either.

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