NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition Review: The 4080 Done Right

Brent_Justice

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Introduction At CES 2024, NVIDIA announced its SUPER series refresh for the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs. The new SUPER series is comprised of the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. We’ve recently reviewed the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and today we […]

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I recently gave in to getting a Zotac Amp Aero Extreme OC version of this. Loving it so far and have mostly had identical experiences with it but so far only had a few hours of playtime and testing this past Sunday. I was lucky enough to find one on Amazon for $1150 plus tax and free shipping. I'm also impressed with its power efficiency. I totally agree, the 4080 done right.
 
While I think its a great card, its still overpriced IMO.
 
The super cards have been over msrp since they came out unless you were lucky enough to get one pretty early on. I've been pretty happy with my MSI 4080 non super which I paid under $1,000 for at the time. Got it before things got crazy again with the GPU market again.
 
There've been some ups and downs with them. I've been checking somewhat regularly since the 4070 Ti Super launched because I knew I wanted to upgrade that rig. The one that I've never seen at MSRP is what Brent reviewed, the Founders Edition, but only having one or two official sources for that makes it incredibly difficult to get.

I forget who, but someone mentioned in another thread that B&H has had some AIB cards at MSRP, PNY I think, and I almost ordered one from them. Newegg has some but you usually have to get them in a PSU combo and there are some decent combos (saw a MSI Suprim X 4080 Super and 1300W ATX 3.0 for ~$1300) but I really don't need a new PSU right now but I almost pulled the trigger on that one. I ultimately reminded myself how this was really a splurge and to stick to a budget that started in the 900-1000 range.

It's a shame though, yeah, anyone wanting to get one at MSRP still has to put in the time to look around. They can be found and some days are easier than others but persistence is key for those who want to save money. The only reason I didn't go with the 4070 Ti Super, and I've absolutely found some at $799, is that it would be a wash with the 3090 Ti I replaced while the 4080 Super is ~10% improvement, and more when factoring in DLSS 3 options. That combined with significantly less power usage and better cooling vs the 3090 Ti was enough to convince me for this card and I'm definitely happy.

Just did a quick search at NVIDIA and yep, no sign of the founders edition but there are two other models at MSRP.

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Just did a quick search at NVIDIA and yep, no sign of the founders edition but there are two other models at MSRP.
Just to add that I've been pleasantly surprised with the 4090 FE card I have. This is my first FE card and so far it has run the coolest out of the three 4090's I have owned.
 
Just to add that I've been pleasantly surprised with the 4090 FE card I have. This is my first FE card and so far it has run the coolest out of the three 4090's I have owned.
I almost grabbed the MSI Expert version of the 4080 Super because it's more-or-less a clone of the FE and accessible but I wanted to try the strategy of an even bigger heatsink for more passive cooling. Having heard of the energy efficiency of the 4080 Super I was curious about that strategy but as your experience and Brent's review shows, the FEs are usually awesome. I'm pretty happy with the Zotac though, it boosts to 2685 MHz at stock and I can't hear it above the AIO/case fans which are all pretty quiet most of the time.
 
I don't think Zotac gets enough appreciation in the hardware community. I have used them off and on going back to I believe was a 9800GT card that lasted for years.
I've had folks telling me for about a decade that they make good cards at great prices but the name is what held me back. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but its just not one that makes me think, yeah I need a Zotac to get the job done. However, I'm somewhat converted now, at least on the affordable side of things for OC model.
 
I've had folks telling me for about a decade that they make good cards at great prices but the name is what held me back. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but its just not one that makes me think, yeah I need a Zotac to get the job done. However, I'm somewhat converted now, at least on the affordable side of things for OC model.
I only had one Zotac card as they are hard to come by here, it was a Geforce 4 Ti 4200, it OCed past my brothers Ti 4600, really good performance at the time.
 
I didn't know, or at least remember, they'd been around that long. They didn't get on my radar until around the 700 or 900 series.
 
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