4080 or 7900xtx

[Frag_Maniac]

? I've never actually not seen it available....

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-16gb-gddr6x-graphics-card-titanium-and-black/6521431.p?skuId=6521431

Their CS has always been amazing for me even offered to swap a card that I had with mild coil whine which technically isn't a defect.

Apologies, I was mistaking the 4080 for the 4090. How easy it is to forget the 4080 is the black sheep of the family many ignored because it was expected to launch at more like $800 vs $1200, not to mention having only 3/4 the VRAM of it's AMD competitor. And trust me, that is the ONLY reason they are still in stock.

I say easy to forget because the 4090 FEs have been out of stock so long, the distaste for the 4080 pricing and VRAM has somewhat cooled off since then.

BTW, does your Giga 4090 have coil whine? I've been tempted by the PNY 4090 Best Buy has for $1600, as reviews say it runs cool and quiet. Not sure I like the gimped power level though, which makes it slower than an FE.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Apologies, I was mistaking the 4080 for the 4090. How easy it is to forget the 4080 is the black sheep of the familiar many ignored because it was expected to launch at more like $800 vs $1200, not to mention having only 3/4 the VRAM of it's AMD competitor. And trust me, that is the ONLY reason they are still in stock.

For sure the 4090 FE is still extremely hard to get I've only seen it in stock once and briefly. These companies including nvidia keep a set number of cards for RMA though.

This whole generation is terrible from a pricing standpoint but if I'm spending around 1k on a gpu it better be good at more than just raster.

Honestly pricing has gotten so bad we look at a meh 7800XT as the saving grace of this generation and probably only the 4090 being the other appealing option.

Don't get me wrong the hardware in general is great pricing has just went to crap.

For me it was 4090 or bust for others it could be any one of these cards really comes down to the performance/features you are looking for and if you are willing to stomach the price of entry.

 

[evernessince]

VRAM don't make a GPU future proof. LMAO. Features do.

Hm, the 3070, 3080, 3080 Ti and the entire 2000 series beg to differ. Their features sure as heck did not help how quickly they were outmoded, particularly the 3070 which essentially became unable to do RT within 1 year and 10 months in new AAA titles.

The 7900XTX unfortunately is miles behind in heavy RT games and should cost way less. The raster performance is somewhat irrelevant when the moment you enable RT, on a 1000£ gpu, it falls behind 3080.

This is a patently false statement:

The 7900 XTX is significantly faster than the 3080 in RT. Some people in this thread are greatly exaggerating Nvidia's benefits. Either card is a good choice.

That was my thinking that by the time even 16gb is needed both cards will be useless as we will be into ps6 territory, looking back at 980ti it was useless by the time we needed 8gb 1080ti useless by the time 11is needed same for 2080ti
None of the titan cards have ever been relevant because of vram and that what I class the 24gb cards as. I would have gone 4090 but my psu is 8 years old and currently handles 350w fine but I’d need to buy extra cables for a 4090 and don’t no how I’d feel about my 8 year old psi pulling that much power so I’d most likely get a new one at that point which would push the cost up £700 for the 90 and psu for 20-30 percent performance lol

As a person who recently upgraded from a 1080 Ti, the 11GB of VRAM the card had was absolutely critical to keeping the card going later in it's life. I was able to keep the texture settings at max thanks to that, meanwhile owners of even the newer 2080 had to dial down settings. If you plan on keeping your card for a few generations VRAM will absolutely play a role.

If you look at core count, TMUs, ROPs, ect the 4090 has 68% more resources at it's disposal. As games become more demanding and as faster CPUs allow the 4090 to stretch it's wings the 4090 will pull farther ahead. Really the current 4080 is a 4070 / 4060 Ti if you compare die size, Nvidia is giving you much less for your money compared to prior gens. There's nothign that can be done about that though, both AMD and Nvidia like to keep prices high.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

For sure the 4090 FE is still extremely hard to get I've only seen it in stock once and briefly. These companies including nvidia keep a set number of cards for RMA though.

This whole generation is terrible from a pricing standpoint but if I'm spending around 1k on a gpu it better be good at more than just raster.

Honestly pricing has gotten so bad we look at a meh 7800XT as the saving grace of this generation and probably only the 4090 being the other appealing option.

Don't get me wrong the hardware in general is great pricing has just went to crap.

For me it was 4090 or bust for others it could be any one of these cards really comes down to the performance/features you are looking for and if you are willing to stomach the price of entry.

Sorry, it appears you replied before I edited in the question about your Giga 4090?

As far as AMD's saving grace though I think it is actually the 6950. I've seen it as low as $580, and you can't beat a price like that for the performance it kicks out. It's FAR more than a get me by card, yet in today's market, that's pretty much a get me by price.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Sorry, it appears you replied before I edited in the question about your Giga 4090?

As far as AMD's saving grace though I think it is actually the 6950. I've seen it as low as $580, and you can't beat a price like that for the performance it kicks out. It's FAR more than a get me by card, yet in today's market, that's pretty much a get me by price.

Of the three I had hands on with only the Gigabyte didn't have audible coil whine. The Suprim was the worst and the Tuf was audible over case fans.

The PNY card seem solid enough though and I've heard their CS is pretty decent.

 

[Vayra86]

I'd lean towards the 4080 at about equal pricing. Less heat, same ballpark perf, better featureset.
If the 4080 would end up being $100,- more, I'd reconsider and probably rate them equally, unless I'd care about RT.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

The PNY card seem solid enough though...

I thought so too until I saw the thread here about the guy having problems with one destroying his 12VHPWR plug twice.

No doubt great customer service to replace it twice though.

 

[Johnthedon1]

Hm, the 3070, 3080, 3080 Ti and the entire 2000 series beg to differ. Their features sure as heck did not help how quickly they were outmoded, particularly the 3070 which essentially became unable to do RT within 1 year and 10 months in new AAA titles.



This is a patently false statement:

View attachment 316183

The 7900 XTX is significantly faster than the 3080 in RT. Some people in this thread are greatly exaggerating Nvidia's benefits. Either card is a good choice.



As a person who recently upgraded from a 1080 Ti, the 11GB of VRAM the card had was absolutely critical to keeping the card going later in it's life. I was able to keep the texture settings at max thanks to that, meanwhile owners of even the newer 2080 had to dial down settings. If you plan on keeping your card for a few generations VRAM will absolutely play a role.

If you look at core count, TMUs, ROPs, ect the 4090 has 68% more resources at it's disposal. As games become more demanding and as faster CPUs allow the 4090 to stretch it's wings the 4090 will pull farther ahead. Really the current 4080 is a 4070 / 4060 Ti if you compare die size, Nvidia is giving you much less for your money compared to prior gens. There's nothign that can be done about that though, both AMD and Nvidia like to keep prices high.

The problem for me with amds raytracing is that none of the cards are fast enough for 1440p with raytracing without upscaling and fsr quality is just not acceptable which makes it useless to me, say 7900xt is 50 fps the 4080 would be 60 and then dlss would take it to around 80-90, so for me it’s looking at 50 fps vs 90 fps

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I thought so too until I saw the thread here about the guy having problems with one destroying his 12VHPWR plug twice.

No doubt great customer service to replace it twice though.

It was two different cards one Palit one PNY.

Also I'd consider that just really really bad luck because it's insanely hard to replicate. My gigabyte card has been super solid but some have had fan issues likely also a very small %.

 

[ARF]

But then it raises the question, why hasn't Noone ever called the 7900xtx basically a 7700xt? It only happens with nvidia cards...

That's to be wanted but only possible in a perfect world which we know we don't live in...
I think AMD screwed the whole generation up.

There should have been the Navi 31 XT in Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB.
Then Navi 31 XTX released sometime around now in Radeon RX 7900 XT 24 GB.
While Navi 31 XL should have been either Radeon RX 7800 16 GB or Radeon RX 7750 XT 16 GB.

I mean, the product positioning based on VRAM amount, and 24 GB being an overkill as is.

 

[Chrispy_]

DLSS is better than FSR, period.

You don't want to be using either DLSS or FSR at 1440p with these cards though, so you should ignore that.

For me, I've had access to just about every RTX card ever made and personally had up to a 3090 in my home rigs - currently sitting back with a 4060Ti - and not a single ray tracing game has ever been worth enabling raytracing on. For games where it has minimal performance impact, it's barely perceptible anyway. For games where you actually notice the visual improvement, it costs too much to be worth it IMO.

So realistically, your choice (if it were me picking) is whether you care about power efficiency and dual AV1 encoders on the Nvidia side, and the 24GB VRAM, better drivers control panel, and potentially better game support down the line in a world where the engines are being tailored to all-AMD console hardware first and foremost.

You can't really go wrong with either choice, but if I were a betting man I'd say that you're going to have a slightly better experience with Nvidia whilst the 40-series is current, and then get abandoned like an unwanted puppy as soon as Nvidia release the 50-series. Look at how Nvidia treats 30-series and 20-series RTX owners. They're still given the cold shoulder on frame-generation and it's (once again) AMD providing vendor-agnostic FSR3 frame generation for poor Nvidia 30-series owners who thought they were buying into the "superior Nvidia feature set".

 

[evernessince]

That's to be wanted but only possible in a perfect world which we know we don't live in...
I think AMD screwed the whole generation up.

There should have been the Navi 31 XT in Radeon RX 7800 XT 16 GB.
Then Navi 31 XTX released sometime around now in Radeon RX 7900 XT 24 GB.
While Navi 31 XL should have been either Radeon RX 7800 16 GB or Radeon RX 7750 XT 16 GB.

I mean, the product positioning based on VRAM amount, and 24 GB being an overkill as is.

Yeah I'm not really sure what AMD's GPU division is thinking sometimes. They could easily look at what they did to get a foothold in the CPU market with Zen but instead they are giving customers barley better value, which really isn't exciting.

The problem for me with amds raytracing is that none of the cards are fast enough for 1440p with raytracing without upscaling and fsr quality is just not acceptable which makes it useless to me, say 7900xt is 50 fps the 4080 would be 60 and then dlss would take it to around 80-90, so for me it’s looking at 50 fps vs 90 fps

If you want RT definitely go 4080. There's really no argument for the 7900 XTX if that's one of your primary criteria.

 

[cmguigamf]

Personally I'd hold off at least until Alan Wake 2, which is supposed to be the next game featuring path tracing, after nVidia's glorified tech demo CP2077, and see how much RDNA3 will take a hit on it vs Ada. Not all RT implementations are born equal (CP2077, RE4, UE5-based games, etc all work differently), so probably PT won't, either.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I assume you want to see some nice graphics, and the 7900xtx can't deliver them.

Are you deliberately lying or are you really THAT ignorant?

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review - Disrupting the GeForce RTX 4080

Navi 31 is here! The new $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this review is AMD's new flagship card based on the wonderful chiplet technology that made the Ryzen Effect possible. In our testing we can confirm that the new RX 7900 XTX is indeed faster than the GeForce RTX 4080, but only with RT disabled.

www.techpowerup.com

Read, learn.

 

[Johnthedon1]

Are you deliberately lying or are you really THAT ignorant?

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review - Disrupting the GeForce RTX 4080

Navi 31 is here! The new $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this review is AMD's new flagship card based on the wonderful chiplet technology that made the Ryzen Effect possible. In our testing we can confirm that the new RX 7900 XTX is indeed faster than the GeForce RTX 4080, but only with RT disabled.

www.techpowerup.com

Read, learn.

He’s got a point if you spending 1000 on a gpu do you want raytracing or not ?
both need upscaling to do raytracing and be playable and fsr is unacceptable.
Both destroy 1440p regardless of either small wins here or there so if you didn’t want raytracing a 7800xt is enough

 

[JustBenching]

Are you deliberately lying or are you really THAT ignorant?

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Review - Disrupting the GeForce RTX 4080

Navi 31 is here! The new $999 Radeon RX 7900 XTX in this review is AMD's new flagship card based on the wonderful chiplet technology that made the Ryzen Effect possible. In our testing we can confirm that the new RX 7900 XTX is indeed faster than the GeForce RTX 4080, but only with RT disabled.

www.techpowerup.com

Read, learn.

The review you just linked shows the 2 cards being identical in raster while the 4080 can get up to 50 or even more % faster in heavy RT games. I don't know why this is even a discussion, if price is the same you get the 4080

 

[lexluthermiester]

He’s got a point if you spending 1000 on a gpu do you want raytracing or not ?

Not everyone cares. And let's face facts, the 7900XTX is a beast of a card. If Raytracing is not important to you, then the 7900XTX is the better card, full stop.

both need upscaling to do raytracing and be playable and fsr is unacceptable.

The problems with FSR are a bit more fine-grained than a simple "It sucks!". It's not perfect and DLSS is better in certain situations. But FSR is workable and when configured well, works well.

Both destroy 1440p regardless of either small wins here or there so if you didn’t want raytracing a 7800xt is enough

Good point. However, should you chose to go 4k the 7900XTX will have you covered, the 4080 less so.

Make no mistake, IF RayTracing is important to you, get the 4080.

 

[Chrispy_]

my Zotac experience is so far excellent.

I bought dozens, maybe even 100+ Zotac Ampere cards because they're well-made, quiet, compact compared to many other vendors, and good value.
Honestly, for Nvidia GPUs I'd put them in the top 3 AIB vendors in that they don't stand out for anything exceptional, but I've had absolute turds with major issues from Asus, Palit, KFA2, and Gigabyte - and when I say turds I don't mean one bad card - my minimum purchase is usually 4 GPUs at a time and I'm not unfamiliar with ordering a whole pallet of GPUs direct from distributors.

My only gripe with Zotac cards is that I hate how they look, but since I don't have to use the systems I build and other people think they look cool - it's not something I'll hold against them.

Oh, back on topic -

You've given us the choice of an overpriced 7900XTX vs a discounted 4080. If those are genuinely your only two options, go for the 4080. Personally, I'd take one of the correctly-priced 7900XTX cards - Amazon have the XFX Merc310 for £786 and deliver next-day to even the remote, cave-dwelling hermits in the Outer Hebrides. I don't know why you're limiting yourself to a £975 Powercolor model which is offering practically nothing at all for the extra 25% cost. It's ridiculous that you're even considering the option to me, but I'm not you so I don't know what other geographical/logistical/emotional/irrational constraints you're working with.

Full disclosure: I've never used or bought a 4080, only a 4070Ti and 4090. From what I read, the 4080 is the undisputed performance/Watt champion, which could matter if you're a noise-level/efficiency snob.

 

[JustBenching]

Not everyone cares. And let's face facts, the 7900XTX is a beast of a card. If Raytracing is not important to you, then the 7900XTX is the better card, full stop.

Even if you don't care about RT it's not the better card full stop, lol. How can it be? It has the same raster performance while consuming a lot more power, it supports half the features and the one it does it's just doing it worse than nvidia, it lacks cuda acceleration, and the list goes on and on. It's definitely not the better card.

 

[Chrispy_]

He’s got a point if you spending 1000 on a gpu do you want raytracing or not ?
both need upscaling to do raytracing and be playable and fsr is unacceptable.
Both destroy 1440p regardless of either small wins here or there so if you didn’t want raytracing a 7800xt is enough

Can confirm.
Downgraded to a 7800XT at 1440p on one of my machines to save energy and get a free copy of Starfield.

The thing to remember about AMD cards is that whilst Nvidia are pretty strict on power limits and overclocking, there's quite a lot left on the table with AMD - you can usually get a decent overclock AND undervolt to reduced power consumption at the same time. Don't take the official review power consumption figures at stock settings as a fair comparison because you can definitely unvervolt AMD cards harder than Nvidia cards.

If money is no object, I would take the 4080 because I am an efficiency snob with very low tolerance of noise, heat and, high power draw. But make no mistake, that's ONLY on the condition that I'm not paying for these cards. If it was my money I'd get the XTX and undervolt.

Honestly I wouldn't recommend or not recommend one brand over the other if the card dies it was most likely just bad luck and that can happen with any brand.

Palit and Asus are on my shitlist after bulk purchasing a model of GPU that turned out to have design faults apparent on all samples of that particular GPU. I've had 3 different Palit models, all felt far too cheap and flimsy - I'll be amazed if they all make it to 3 years old without the GPU sag cracking solder joints. Also, their fan control sucks and the both of the 3 fan models were using fan controllers designed for 2 fans, so the fan RPM would panic when two fans reported conflicting data to the same channel of the fan controller. ROOKIE ERROR. Asus are on my shitlist for simply selling cards that have inadequate coolers. Both Phoenix and DUAL models have been woefully cooled and despite not really caring about fan noise, they've needed 70%+ fan speeds in an air conditioned room. That's just wrong on so many levels and there's obviously very little headroom or tolerance for higher temperatures, and I imagine the fan noise in a regular home environment of those models would have been unbearable. Like, RMA or return to seller for an immediate refund on my "mistake purchase" situation.

For the record, I normally buy low-end models because they're going in non-windowed cases in a relatively loud environment. For me it's all about performance/$ and I typically buy the base model of any GPU - tending to get nicer variants for commissions or personal builds only (1-2 a month at most).

 

[GhostRyder]

There are cheaper 7900 XTX's than that one I believe.

Now either way based on the two choices I would get the 7900 XTX over the 4080. The major difference is going to be Ray Tracing, which is round 15% - 20% overall difference. I mean the extra ram is nice but at that rate it is probably a bit overkill either way. I always say this when comparing AMD to Nvidia currently, but Ray Tracing is not that widely used enough for it to be a game changer in terms of choice. Plus even if it is, unless your mixing DLSS and Ray Tracing at the same time the performance hit is still huge enough on anything but an RTX 4090.

Now if all your going to play is Ray Traced games, then maybe that will be the difference. But I would choose the better overall performance to guarantee better frames than Ray Tracing performance when it hits so hard anyways. But I prefer high FPS gaming.

 

[gffermari]

Personally, I'd take one of the correctly-priced 7900XTX cards - Amazon have the XFX Merc310 for £786

That's a 7900XT, not XTX.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's a 7900XT, not XTX.

My bad, you're right.
UK pricing on XTX seems high right now, I was sure they were under £900 but the best I can find right now is £919 inc VAT

I deal almost exclusively with ex. VAT pricing so £786 didn't seem wrong for an XTX to me at a quick glance.
£975 inc VAT for an XTX is therefore nothing special but £1050 for a 4080 is quite a good deal - presumably price cuts because they weren't selling at £1200.

I'm swaying towards the 4080 being a better choice for the first 3 years. Whether it takes 3 or 5 years for the XTX to look like the better deal probably won't matter in 2026.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Even if you don't care about RT it's not the better card full stop, lol.

Your opinion.

How can it be?

Read the review.

It has the same raster performance while consuming a lot more power

That is incorrect. READ the review.

It's definitely not the better card.

Your opinion.

@Johnthedon1
As was stated above, if you care about RayTracing, get the 4080. If not, the 7900XTX is THE card to have.

 

[JustBenching]

Your opinion.

Read the review.

That is incorrect. READ the review.

Your opinion.

@Johnthedon1
As was stated above, if you care about RayTracing, get the 4080. If not, the 7900XTX is THE card to have.

Of course it's my opinion, just like your post before was your opinion. So?

I did read the review. Raster performance is identical and the 7900xtx loses to literally every other metric. For the same money, buying the amd card is basically a donation to amd.