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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Max Q

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Max Q: Power in an Ultrabook

April 2025

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Max Q is a top-tier mobile graphics card that combines desktop-level performance with the energy efficiency needed for slim gaming laptops and workstations. Released in 2023, it remains relevant by 2025 due to driver optimizations and support for new technologies. In this article, we will explore what sets this GPU apart, how it performs in gaming and professional tasks, and whom to recommend it to.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Ampere Architecture: A Breakthrough in Efficiency

The RTX 3080 Ti Max Q is built on the Ampere architecture (NVIDIA 2nd Gen RTX). The chips are manufactured using Samsung's 8nm process, which provides a balance between performance and thermal output.

RTX Technologies, DLSS, and FidelityFX Support

- RTX (Ray Tracing): Hardware-accelerated ray tracing is enabled through 58 RT cores, allowing for realistic lighting and shadows in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus Enhanced.

- DLSS 3.0: Artificial intelligence boosts FPS by 40-70% without sacrificing quality, especially at 4K. For instance, in Alan Wake 2 with DLSS, the card delivers a stable 60 FPS at ultra settings.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Despite being an AMD technology, it is supported in hybrid mode on NVIDIA, which is useful for games that do not support DLSS, such as Starfield.

Additional Features:

- NVIDIA Reflex: Reduces input lag to as low as 15 ms in competitive projects (Valorant, CS2).

- AV1 Decode: Accelerates video decoding for streamers.

2. Memory: Speed and Capacity

GDDR6X: Faster Than Ever

The card is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. The bandwidth reaches 448 GB/s, which is 20% higher than the previous generation (RTX 2080 Ti Max Q).

Impact on Performance:

- 4K Gaming: The high bandwidth minimizes texture drops. For example, in Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K, the card maintains 45-50 FPS without DLSS.

- Professional Tasks: The large memory capacity allows for 8K video rendering in DaVinci Resolve without lag.

3. Gaming Performance

Tests in Popular Titles (2025):

- Cyberpunk 2077 (with RT Ultra, DLSS Quality):

- 1080p: 95 FPS

- 1440p: 72 FPS

- 4K: 55 FPS

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V (without RT):

- 1440p: 140 FPS

- 4K: 85 FPS

- Star Wars: Eclipse (with RT and FSR):

- 1440p: 65 FPS

Ray Tracing: Enabling RT reduces FPS by 25-40%, but DLSS compensates for the losses. For games supporting it, the RTX 3080 Ti Max Q is an optimal choice.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing and 3D Rendering

- Adobe Premiere Pro: Renders a 4K video in 8 minutes (versus 15 minutes with the RTX 3070 Mobile).

- Blender: CUDA cores accelerate scene rendering by 30% compared to the Radeon RX 6800M.

Scientific Calculations:

Support for OpenCL and CUDA makes the card suitable for machine learning (TensorFlow) and simulations. For example, training a neural network on PyTorch takes 20% less time than on comparable AMD GPUs.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP and Cooling

- TDP: 90-100 W (35% lower than the desktop RTX 3080 Ti).

- Recommendations:

- Laptops with vapor chamber cooling (e.g., ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15).

- Avoid thin enclosures less than 18 mm thick to prevent throttling.

Temperatures:

- Under load: 75-82°C (with good cooling).

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 6900M XT:

- Pros: Better in "raw" performance without RT (10-15% higher FPS in Far Cry 7).

- Cons: Weaker in ray tracing (25-30% loss) and no equivalent to DLSS 3.0.

NVIDIA RTX 4080 Mobile:

- Newer but more expensive ($2800+ versus $2500 for the 3080 Ti Max Q). Performance boost is only 15-20%.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply:

- Minimum 230 W for the laptop.

Compatibility:

- Thunderbolt 4 for connecting external 8K monitors.

- Update drivers via GeForce Experience: optimizations for Elder Scrolls VI were released in 2025.

Nuances:

- Enable DLSS in settings — it does not affect quality but boosts FPS.

- Use cooling pads for extended gaming sessions.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Ideal balance of power and portability.

- Support for all current technologies (DLSS 3.0, RTX).

- Excellent performance in 1440p and 4K.

Cons:

- High price ($2500-3000 for laptops).

- Limited number of models featuring this GPU.

9. Final Recommendation

The RTX 3080 Ti Max Q is suitable for:

- Gamers who want to play in 4K with RT on a laptop.

- Professionals needing mobility for video editing or 3D work.

- Enthusiasts valuing quiet and slim systems without compromises.

If the budget allows, it is one of the best investments in mobile performance for 2025.

Prices are current as of April 2025. The cost of new laptops with the RTX 3080 Ti Max Q is indicated.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

January 2022

Model Name

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Max Q

Generation

GeForce 30 Mobile

Base Clock

585MHz

Boost Clock

1125MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x16

Transistors

Unknown

RT Cores

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

232

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

232

Foundry

Samsung

Process Size

8 nm

Architecture

Ampere

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

16GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

256bit

Memory Clock

1500MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

384.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

108.0 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

261.0 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

16.70 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

261.0 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

16.366 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

7424

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

4MB

TDP

80W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

8.6

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.5

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

16.366 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile

19.084 +16.6%

RTX A4000 Mobile

17.544 +7.2%

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Max Q

16.366

RTX 3000 Mobile Ada Generation

15.932 -2.7%

Tesla PG503 216

15.357 -6.2%