Nvidia RTX 3080 crushes RTX 2080 in leaked benchmarks

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By Roland Moore-Colyer
published

Nvidia's new high-end graphics card also slays the RTX 2080 Ti

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
(Image credit: Nvidia)

When Nvidia said that its new GeForce RTX 3080 is two times as fast as the RTX 2080 it seemed like a big claim. But early benchmarks show how the new Amepre-based GPU crushes its Turing-based predecessor. 

A suite of benchmarks were posted online and spotted by VideoCardz, and they show how the RTX 3080 utterly stomps on the RTX 2080 and also outperforms the RTX 2080 Ti, a graphics card that was once Nvidia's top-of-the-line consumer GPU. 

The benchmarks in question were ones for OpenCL and CUDA performance, rather than in-game scores. But in short they show how the RTX 3080 is up to twice as fast as the RTX 2080 and 60 percent faster than the RTX 2080 Ti in the CUDA benchmark.

On average, the RTX 3080 was some 68 per cent faster than its predecessor and 38 percent faster than the RTX 2080 Ti in the CUDA tests. In the OpenCL tests, the RTX 3080 smashed the other cards by an average of 68 percent and 41 percent respectively.

Nvidia RTX 3080 benchmarks

(Image credit: VideoCardz)

It’s worth noting that Nvidia hasn’t confirmed the performance results, and it’s early days for the GeForce RTX 3080. That means there’s likely more performance to be had out of it with more optimisation facilitated through driver updates. 

Nvidia has already released a video showing how Doom Eternal running at 4K on Ultra settings on an RTX 3080 out performs the RTX 2080 Ti by 50 percent. So if you have an RTX 2080 Ti and have $699 burning a hole in your pocket, then an upgrade to the RTX 3080 might be worth it. 

We’d advise you hold fire though, as AMD is set to launch its Big Navi graphics card this fall. That GPU has been touted as an “Nvidia-killer” and leaks point towards it outperforming the RTX 2080 Ti by 40 to 50 percent. In (rough) theory, that would put it on par with the RTX 3080. 

We’ll have to wait and see what AMD Big Navi has to offer when it’s finally revealed. But for PC gamers, the fall is going to be an interesting time to get a new graphics card.   

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.