Alleged RTX 4080 Time Spy and Blender Benchmarks Emerge

GeForce RTX 4080
(Image credit: Zed Wang)

The next Ada Lovelace graphics card that's due to be served up by Nvidia is the GeForce RTX 4080. Over the last few hours, there have been some interesting performance-indicative leaks claimed to feature this model, from usually reputable sources. The leaked benchmark scores show the RTX 4080 between 25% and 37% slower than the formidable RTX 4090. We must take these results with a pinch of salt, but they are worthy of closer examination.

Twitter user @Zed_Wang published screenshots apparently taken from 3DMark benchmark runs. 3DMark benchmarks provide an indicative gaming performance score, as they run through a fixed path within UL Benchmark’s tuned graphics engine.  We have both the Time Spy DX12 benchmark and Time Spy Extreme 4K DX12 benchmark scores to ponder over and compare. The RTX 4090 appears to be respectively 25% faster and 37% faster than the 4080 in these comparisons. If accurate, these results indicate that the RTX 4090’s advantages over the RTX 4080 are most apparent in higher-resolution gaming situations, at 4K or better.

(Image credit: Apisak)

For another perspective on RTX 4080 performance, seasoned leaker @Tum Apisak has shared what is purported to be a Blender benchmark run score. Blender is a free and open source 3D modelling application, so GPUs are useful in this situation for accelerating scene previews and rendered stills or animations. Additionally it supports GPU ray tracing hardware, so it helps to weight the relative potency of this aspect of a GPU. According to the Blender data, the upcoming RTX 4080 is going to be approx 28% slower than the flagship RTX 4090.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

RTX 4090

RTX 4080

RTX 3090 Ti

RTX 3080

RX 6950 XT

Time Spy

35704

28599

21705

17656

21864

Time Spy Ex

19467

14178

11291

8898

10688

Blender median

12106

9479

6280

5023

2134

For a broader comparison, we have put the leaked benchmarking scores in the above table, alongside known performers like the RTX 3090 Ti and RTX 3080, as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 6950 XT for some red-on-green fun.

We have the official specs for both the GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 from the September launch event. At launch, there were two RTX 4080 models announced, but Nvidia has since trimmed it down to one. You can check out an extensive specs comparison in the linked story. But in essence, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 compare as per the table below.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Nvidia GeForce

RTX 4090

RTX 4080

CUDA Cores

16384

9728

RT Cores

128

76

Boost Clock (GHz)

2.52

2.51

Memory Size

24 GB

16 GB

Memory Bus

384-bit

256-bit

Memory Type

GDDR6X 21 Gbps

GDDR6X 22.4 Gbps

Nvidia plans to launch the GeForce RTX 4080 on November 16, at $1,199. Expect a full and extensive review of the RTX 4080 for you to digest around the launch date.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • gg83
    The 4090 has double the Cuda cores? Holy cow!
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    So, taking AMD's numbers (with salt, soy sauce, whatever) and projecting on top of the 6950XT:

    7900XTX:
    Time Spy: 21864 x 1.5 = 32796
    Time Spy Ex: 10688 x 1.5 = 16032
    Blender median: 2134 x 1.5 = 3201

    They claimed "up to" 1.7x and this test should provide the best scaling, so those are very conservative numbers. The 4080 16GB will be $1200 and the 7900XTX $1000. This tells me the new AMD card will slot right in-between the 4090 and 4080-16GB at a lower price than the latter... While I do acknowledge the 4080 will still have better RT and it does have DLSS for whoever actually uses it... Is the loss in raster worth an extra $200 (on paper)?

    Unless someone is completely tied to nVidia's ecosystem, holy dang... I think the 4080-16GB may be DOA for most.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • helper800
    -Fran- said:
    So, taking AMD's numbers (with salt, soy sauce, whatever) and projecting on top of the 6950XT:

    7900XTX:
    Time Spy: 21864 x 1.5 = 32796
    Time Spy Ex: 10688 x 1.5 = 16032
    Blender median: 2134 x 1.5 = 3201

    They claimed "up to" 1.7x and this test should provide the best scaling, so those are very conservative numbers. The 4080 16GB will be $1200 and the 7900XTX $1000. This tells me the new AMD card will slot right in-between the 4090 and 4080-16GB at a lower price than the latter... While I do acknowledge the 4080 will still have better RT and it does have DLSS for whoever actually uses it... Is the loss in raster worth an extra $200 (on paper)?

    Unless someone is completely tied to nVidia's ecosystem, holy dang... I think the 4080-16GB may be DOA for most.

    Regards.
    DLSS for me is used in every game that has it if i get under 120fps on 1% lows. Quality DLSS is almost indistinguishable without staring at very specific things in backgrounds.
    Reply
  • sizzling
    helper800 said:
    DLSS for me is used in every game that has it if i get under 120fps on 1% lows. Quality DLSS is almost indistinguishable without staring at very specific things in backgrounds.
    Same here
    Reply
  • spentshells
    The core count between the 4090 and 4080 leaves little in the way of new models... 4081, 4082?
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    considering i only have 1 game that supports RT or DLSS, if radeon has better raster performance then the rtx 40 series, looks like i will be picking up a radeon to finally upgrade my 1060.

    that and the part of the melting connector :-) which a few people i know are going to either postpone, or skip the rtx 40 series because of that connector
    Reply
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    helper800 said:
    DLSS for me is used in every game that has it if i get under 120fps on 1% lows. Quality DLSS is almost indistinguishable without staring at very specific things in backgrounds.

    correct, the 4080 could be double the 7900 perf and I’d still buy AMD to not get a fire/damaged home.
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    It's looking like this card will be a gaming beast at 1440P.
    Reply
  • helper800
    Sleepy_Hollowed said:
    correct, the 4080 could be double the 7900 perf and I’d still buy AMD to not get a fire/damaged home.
    I like the funny meme reactions to things but when people start believing the meme to be something that is reality is when I start hating social interaction. It will be nearly impossible for this connector to start a fire and a magnitude higher than that for it to lead to fire. The 4000 series problems will be resolved eventually. I certainly wont be an early adapter, but not because my house will burn down, but because I like it when my multi thousand dollar machine doesn't potentially need a new GPU due to Nvidia's oversights.
    Reply
  • tresnugget
    These benchmarks are likely fake. There would never be a larger boost in performance at 1440p than at 4k. It's saying there's a 32% boost in performance going from the 3090 Ti to the 4080 at 1440p in Time Spy but in Time Spy Extreme at 4k where there would be a GPU bottleneck instead of a CPU bottleneck there's only a 26% boost. Makes 0 sense.
    Reply