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Our graphics card test PC uses an Nvidia PCAT v2 device, which combined with FrameView allows us to capture power, temperature, and GPU clocks from our full gaming suite — along with the usual frame times. The charts below show the geometric mean across all 15 games, though we also have full tables showing the individual results further down the page.
We have separate charts for 1080p medium/ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra in the galleries below. Keep in mind that factory overclocked cards will also perform differently, so the data here is for the reference RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition. Reference clocked cards will likely have similar power and clock characteristics, though cooling, VRMs, and other elements can affect the results.
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Power Use
The RTX 4080 Super puts Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture to good use, delivering excellent performance and efficiency characteristics yet again. Compared to the RTX 4080, it has the same nominal 320W TGP, and across our full test suite, it averaged 216W at 1080p medium, 248W at 1080p ultra, 276W at 1440p ultra, and 300W at 4K ultra. There are plenty of games where it's not drawing the full 320W, in other words.
In terms of performance per watt, it's nearly identical to the RTX 4080, which was already the most efficient GPU we've tested. The 4080 Super is also 33% more efficient than AMD's 7900 XTX at 4K, and up to 58% more efficient at 1080p. That's part of the price AMD paid by going with GPU chiplets, which are inherently less efficient at moving data compared to monolithic designs.
That's not to say there aren't games where the 4080 Super can draw its full 320W. We measured power use ranging between 212–323 watts at 1440p and 4K, with the highest power draw generally coming in ray tracing games. Of course, DLSS upscaling and frame generation should reduce power use compared to native rendering.
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Clock Speeds
Nvidia's official boost clocks with the Ada Lovelace series have been very conservative, by around 150–200 MHz typically. That's basically the case with the RTX 4080 Super as well. The rated boost clock is 2550 MHz, and across our test suite we saw average GPU clocks of around 2800 MHz at 1080p, 2790 MHz at 1440p, and 2770 MHz at 4K. Those aren't quite the highest clock speeds we've seen out of a reference card — the 4070 Ti averaged more than 2.8 GHz across all resolutions — but it's pretty close.
Factory overclocked cards will very likely exceed 2.8 GHz, and perhaps even 2.9 GHz in some games. The highest clocks we saw in our testing for a single game were 2.82 GHz, in quite a few of the games, and that appears to be close to the limit for the 4080 Super Founders Edition (without manual overclocking, at least).
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Temperatures
GPU temperatures depend very much on firmware tuning and fan speeds, as well as the heatsink and fans. Considering the 4080 Super Founders Edition basically has the same cooling setup as the 4090 Founders Edition, it should have no difficulty maintaining decent temperatures.
Average temperatures for the 4080 Super Founders Edition were very good, sitting at 62C at 4K, 60C at 1440p, 58C at 1080p ultra, and just 54C at 1080p medium. That goes hand in hand with the power use measured above, with the fans ramping up to higher RPMs for more demanding settings.
The highest temperatures we saw throughout our tests suite were 66–67 degrees Celsius, with Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition being the worst-case result. Several of the games didn't even break 60C, but as we so often note, temperatures are only part of the story, with fan speeds (and noise) being the other key ingredient.
Nvidia RTX 4080 Super Noise Levels
With the same TGP and cooler as the RTX 4080 Founders Edition, and slightly higher temperatures, we expected noise levels to be relatively similar between the vanilla 4080 and the 4080 Super. Once temperatures and fan speeds stabilized, noise from the 4080 Super was 43.9 dB(A), about one decibel louder than the 4080. Fan speed at that point was 41% — a touch faster than the 38% we saw back when we first tested the 4080 Founders Edition.
We also test with a static fan speed of 75%, which resulted in 56.3 dB(A), which was about one decibel quieter than the 4080 at that same fan speed. Even under heavier loads, we never heard the fans reach anything close to that noise level, and there's plenty of headroom for overclocking if you wan to tweak your card settings a bit.
As always, note that our testing of the reference cards used here does not represent other 4080 Super models. We'll have some third-party card reviews in the coming week or two, and we'll see how those compare to Nvidia's Founders Edition. We suspect most won't beat the reference design, which is overbuilt for the 4080 Super, but we'll have to see how that goes once we test the other cards.
Our noise test consists of running Metro Exodus, because it's one of the more power hungry games. We load a save, with graphics set to appropriately strenuous levels (4K ultra in this case), and then let the game sit for at least 15 minutes before checking noise levels. We place the SPL (sound pressure level) meter 10cm from the card, with the mic aimed at the center of the 'front' fan on the 4080 Super Founders Edition. This helps minimize the impact of other noise sources, like the fans on the CPU cooler. The noise floor of our test environment and equipment is 31–32 dB(A).
Full Gaming Test Results
For those who like to look at the finer details, we've provided the above tables showing all of our gaming benchmarks, which include FPS/$ and FPS/W metrics. We use the best prices we can find at the time of writing, and MSRP for the newest cards like the 4080 Super. We won't dig into the details too much, but it's clear that Nvidia's Ada Lovelace GPUs lead all contenders when it comes to efficiency metrics, while the value proposition is murkier.
Looking at the cost of each GPU and its measured performance, the RTX 4080 Super lands ahead of the 4090 and the outgoing 4080, for obvious reasons. It's also ahead of the RX 7900 XTX but behind the 7900 XT, with AMD's best value being the 7800 XT (at least, when looking at the cards in this roundup). Nvidia's overall best value is the 4070 Super, followed closely by the vanilla 4070, with the 4070 Ti Super and 4070 Ti basically tied.
That pretty much matches our impression of the various GPUs. Raw performance stops scaling linearly with price past a certain point, and the 4080 Super passes that threshold, along with the 7900 XTX. Real-world pricing can and will change over time, so it will be interesting to see how things shake out in the coming months. The 4080 Super isn't a terrible value, but for most people, the 4070 Ti Super comes close enough in features and performance that it will be the better option.
- MORE: Best Graphics Cards
- MORE: GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy
- MORE: All Graphics Content
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