We're back with Nvidia's latest firepower, and today we've got a head-to-head comparison of the RTX 4080 Super cards for you. We're looking at the RTX 4080 Super TUF Gaming OC from Asus and the RTX 4080 Super Aorus Master from Gigabyte. Both cards promise to push the boundaries of gaming performance, so let's see how they stack up.
First off, the RTX 4000 Super series marks a significant leap forward, offering substantial improvements in CUDA cores, memory, and core speeds over its predecessors. Unfortunately, the 4080 Super only shows modest improvements in Cuda cores, a slight bump in clock speeds and more RT as well as Tensor cores. Due to this, 4080 Super is keeping the same 320W power envelope as the non-super card.
When it comes down to Asus vs. Gigabyte, it's not just about who has more muscle.
Looking at them, the Asus TUF Gaming card is a tried-and-true design. It has this no-nonsense design that says, "I'm here to get the job done." The Aorus card from Gigabyte is more like the sports car – sleek and flashy, with more RGB lights than a disco ball, and there's even a little screen on the front that's perfect for displaying your favourite memes. Plus, it's so big that it could probably double as a coffee table if you're in a pinch!
Enough about looks, let’s dive into the performance. We put these cards through a series of benchmarks, and we opted to bypass the 1080p resolutions as results there are inconclusive mainly due to most tests being heavily CPU bottlenecked. That is a good thing, it just shows the sheer power of these cards we're dealing with here.
So in the 1440p benchmarks for "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," the Gigabyte 4080 Super outperforms the Asus card by 2% in average FPS and 3% in 1% lows, showcasing a slight edge in this resolution. When comparing these two with the broader GPU market, both models significantly outshine the majority, with the Aorus model being around 11% behind the leading RTX 4090 but approximately 3% ahead of the AMD RX 7900 XTX.
At 4K, the performance distinction becomes more evident, with the Aorus 4080 Super maintaining its lead over the Asus TUF 4080 Super by about 2% in average FPS and 1 percentiles. Compared to other high-end options, the Gigabyte is about 24% behind the RTX 4090, and is comparable with AMD RX 7900 XTX.
In "Horizon Zero Dawn" at 1440p, the Asus TUF 4080 Super edges out the competition with an impressive 203 average FPS, just 1% shy of the top performing RTX 4090. The Gigabyte 4080 Super isn't far off, trailing by 3% in average FPS and 8% in 1% lows when compared to the Asus. Both cards significantly outperform the RX 7900 XTX, with the Asus and Gigabyte leading by 14% and 10%, respectively.
At 4K, the Aorus slightly overtakes the TUF 4080 Super by 1% in average FPS, clocking in at 129 FPS compared to Asus's 127. For 1% lows, the Gigabyte maintains a 1% lead. Looking at the broader market, both cards lag behind the RTX 4090 by about 21% yet surpass the AMD RX 7900 XTX by approximately 8%, positioning them as strong options for 4K gaming.
In "World War Z" at 1440p, the TUF Gaming takes the lead, outperforming the Aorus Master by about 2% in both average FPS and 1% lows. When we look at the rest of the cards, the TUF Gaming and Aorus Master both perform exceptionally well, with the TUF Gaming trailing the leading RTX 4090 by just 9%, yet it's ahead of the RX 7900 XTX by a solid 8%.
Scaling up to 4K, the competition tightens. The Aorus Master edges out just barely, being fractionally ahead of the TUF Gaming by less than 1%. In the race for the smoothest performance, they're virtually tied. In the larger context, both are outpaced by the RTX 4090, which leads by a significant 33%, while the TUF Gaming and Aorus Master are slower than the AMD RX 7900 XTX by about 6%.
In "Borderlands 3" at 1440p, the Gigabyte card takes a lead over the Asus card as well as 4090 and that’s because we are actually bottlenecked elsewhere. We have almost identical results at 1080p.
At 4K resolution, both 4080 Super cards showcase almost identical average and 1% low performance. When compared to the top-tier RTX 4090, both the Gigabyte and Asus cards trail by approximately 18%, a gap that highlights the power of Nvidia's flagship. If looking against the RX 7900 XTX, the Aorus and Asus maintain their competitive edge, leading by roughly 16% and 15% in average FPS, respectively.
Let’s change gears and check out some games with ray tracing enabled, starting with Formula 1 2022 at 1440p, the AORUS MASTER and TUF Gaming are in a dead heat, their performance so closely aligned that the differences are virtually indistinguishable. Less than a 1% variation in average FPS means that either card will deliver a near-identical racing experience.
At the 4K resolution, the story is much the same. The two cards match each other stride for stride, reinforcing the notion that for high-end gaming, you can't go wrong with either option. While both lag behind the RTX 4090 by 27%, they comfortably outpace the RX 7900 XTX, highlighting their superior performance in this game.
To get a bit more performance, here is same game at 4K with but with upscaling enabled. The race between the Gigabyte and Asus 4080 Super cards remains as tight as ever, both clocking in at 180 FPS average, making their performance identical. They stand shoulder to shoulder with a mere 0.2% difference in 1% lows. Ultimately, they both use the same chip inside.
Compared to the RTX 4090's performance, the 4080 Supers are pretty close, now only about 25% behind, a testament to the effectiveness of DLSS 3 in bridging the gap at higher resolutions. And even with DLSS 2 the new cards outperform AMD’s best.
In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p both cards are delivering same result, but I would say they have good enough performance to enjoy gameplay. 4K on the other hand is lackluster so will jump straight to 1440p with upscaling enabled.
With DLSS 3 at 1440p, we see both 4080 Supers flex their muscles. The Aorus Master achieves an impressive 196 average FPS with the TUF Gaming OC right on its tail at 193 FPS, as always, the difference is negligible in their performance.
For 4K gaming in Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 3 enabled, both 4080 Supers are displaying great performance, each hovering around 118 FPS. The difference between them is minute, both in average FPS and 1% lows.
When these two are pitted against the GOAT RTX 4090, they are about 19% behind, a gap that is significantly narrowed thanks to DLSS 3's frame generation power. Compared to the AMD RX 7900 XTX, the Gigabyte and TUF Gaming cards hold a substantial lead, outperforming the AMD model by approximately 22%, highlighting the advantage of Nvidia's upscaling technology in maintaining higher frame rates at ultra-high resolutions.
Unfortunately, we were not able to re-do the AMD tests with the new Fluid Motion Frames Technology so AMD results here are not full. Let us know if you would like to see this tested separately.
Let’s cover few quick productivity benchmarks before we do a deeper dive on these cards in particular starting with Vray. They both show top-tier performance - the AORUS MASTER scores a tad higher than the ASUS TUF Gaming OC, with a 1% increase in CUDA and a 1% increase in RTX scores, which are marginal.
When compared to the NVIDIA RTX 4090, the 4080 Super models are approximately 27% and 26% behind in CUDA, and same 26% behind in RTX. This gap signifies the RTX 4090's dominance in rendering tasks, yet the 4080 Supers hold their ground firmly as high-performance options for demanding productivity workflows. Against the previous generation represented by the RTX 3090, both 4080 Super cards demonstrate significant improvements, outperforming it by about 50% in both CUDA and RTX scores.
In the Blender custom render test, which evaluates rendering performance under the CUDA and OPTIX engines for Nvidia cards and HIP engine for AMD Cards, the results demonstrate solid performance for the RTX 4080 Super series.
Both cards perform excellently, with the AORUS MASTER edging out the ASUS variant by a slight margin in CUDA performance, and an even slimmer margin in OPTIX performance. These differences are minuscule, suggesting that either card would be an excellent choice for tasks in Blender.
Against the top-of-the-line RTX 4090, the 4080 Supers are around 36% slower in CUDA and about 7% slower in OPTIX. However, when comparing the 4080 Supers to the RTX 3090, a former leader, the new 4080 Supers show a dramatic improvement, being roughly 32% faster in CUDA and over 25% faster in OPTIX.
Transitioning from 3D rendering to video editing, let's see how these GPUs fare with DaVinci Resolve's demanding workloads. And as we see here, they prove their worth in both 4K and 8K media handling, tying in performance.
Notably, the AMD RX 7900 XTX stands out with its exceptional Fusion score, indicating its capability in handling DaVinci Resolve’s graphic-intensive tasks, outperforming even the formidable RTX 4090 in this aspect.
Overall, while the RTX 4090 leads in raw GPU Effects, the 4080 Supers offer balanced performance across the board, making them a pretty solid option for a video editing machine, providing you are not in need of that extra VRAM. Considering the current 4090 pricing and shortages the new 4080 Super might become the go-to for the top of the line editing machines.
Now let’s do a deeper dive under the hood for both of these cards and see how they did in our synthetic benchmarks to see which one actually is better. Starting with power. We ran these cards through Time Spy Extreme loop and tracked the metrics using Nvidia PCAT. Based on the graph here, we can see they have very similar power metrics.
We compare power usage against framerate and find that both cards head right to the top and actually Gigabyte delivers slightly better performance per watt, becoming our most efficient card to date which is a great achievement. To be honest, I was actually expecting 4080 Super to have lower efficiency, but the data speaks for itself.
When it comes to frequency, we see Aorus Master holds slightly higher frequency across the test. These are not huge numbers but considering they use the same chip inside, any improvement is very welcome, and this is why it scored so well in the efficiency score.
Next is GPU temperature graph and here we see Aorus Master delivers better result – on average about 2 degrees Celsius cooler than ASUS Tuf Gaming card. Personally, I expected it to be warmer considering it is clocking higher but that is not the case.
Digging deeper into thermal performance, we find that Gigabyte card runs cooler than the ASUS TUF Gaming OC by about 5 degrees on average at the GPU Hotspot (which is expected based on previous graph), but when it comes to GPU Memory Junction temperature, here Gigabyte extends its lead to a noteworthy 12 degrees. While memory can run much hotter – the difference here is most likely due to a considerably larger and likely more expensive cooler.
To verify this, we also tested the noise performance of these cards where ASUS card did come out on top with 39.5 dBa over 40.3 dBa from Gigabyte, but that is very minor difference in comparison to temperature delta.
So, where does that leave us in terms of price and value? Both cards are definitely in the premium tier, but considering the performance and features they're packing, they offer solid value for those willing to invest in their gaming future. The choice between them really comes down to what you value more: the Asus TUF Gaming card's simple yet effective design or the Aorus card's bigger than life form with a lot of bling and slightly better performance.
Both RTX 4080 Super cards are certainly top-of-the-line options that won't disappoint. I personally would just pick the cheaper one, but hey – to each their own.
What do you guys think? Are you team Asus or team Gigabyte? Let us know in the comments below.