NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile: Power in Mobile Format

April 2025

In the world of gaming laptops, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile remains a legend, despite the emergence of new generations of GPUs. This model, released in 2019, still finds fans thanks to its balance of performance and mobility. Let's break down what makes it noteworthy in 2025.


Architecture and Key Features

Turing Architecture: A Real-Time Revolution

The RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile is built on the Turing architecture, which was groundbreaking due to the implementation of RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for artificial intelligence. The manufacturing process is 12 nm (TSMC), which may seem outdated by 2025 standards, but code and driver optimization compensates for this.

Unique Technologies:

- RTX (Ray Tracing): Allows for realistic simulation of light, shadows, and reflections. By 2025, over 90% of games support this technology.

- DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling): An AI algorithm that increases image resolution without losing FPS. DLSS 3.5, available through driver updates, enhances detail even in 4K.

- NVIDIA Reflex: Reduces input latency in competitive games such as Valorant or CS:2.


Memory: Fast, but Not Unlimited

GDDR6: 8 GB for Gaming and Creativity

The video card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 352 GB/s. This is sufficient for most games at resolutions up to 1440p, but there may be limitations in 4K or when working with heavy textures in 3D editors.

Why GDDR6?

- Energy Efficiency: Consumes 20% less power compared to GDDR5X.

- Speed: A memory clock speed of 14 GHz allows for quick data processing.

For a mobile version, 8 GB is a reasonable compromise between performance and heat output. However, by 2025, games like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty with ultra settings already require 10-12 GB of VRAM.


Gaming Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p: Maximum Comfort

At Full HD, the RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile showcases stable 60+ FPS even in demanding titles:

- Red Dead Redemption 2 (ultra): 75 FPS.

- Elden Ring (max settings): 90 FPS.

- Call of Duty: Warzone 2.5 (with DLSS): 120 FPS.

1440p: Sweet Spot

At QHD, the card performs adequately but requires DLSS activation for maintaining smoothness:

- Hogwarts Legacy (high + RTX): 45 FPS → 65 FPS with DLSS.

- Starfield (ultra): 55 FPS.

4K: Only with Compromises

For 4K gaming, the power is insufficient. Medium settings and DLSS are mandatory:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (medium + RTX): 35 FPS → 50 FPS with DLSS.

Ray Tracing: Beauty Demands Sacrifice

Activating RTX reduces FPS by 30-40%, but DLSS 3.5 partially mitigates losses. In Minecraft RTX, the card delivers 60 FPS at 1440p.


Professional Tasks: Not Just for Gaming

Video Editing and Rendering

With 2944 CUDA cores, the RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile accelerates rendering in Blender and Adobe Premiere Pro. For example, rendering a 5-minute video at 4K (H.264) takes around 12 minutes compared to 25 minutes on a CPU.

3D Modeling

In Autodesk Maya or SolidWorks, the card shows stability when working with medium-complexity models. However, for scenes with 10+ million polygons, it’s better to choose desktop solutions.

Scientific Calculations

CUDA and OpenCL support make the GPU useful for machine learning (TensorFlow) or simulations in MATLAB. However, the limited memory capacity prevents processing large datasets.


Power Consumption and Heat Output

TDP 150W: Requires a Robust Cooling System

The RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile consumes up to 150W under load. In laptops, this necessitates:

- At least two fans with heat pipes.

- A chassis with air intakes at the bottom and side panels.

Cooling Tips:

- Use cooling pads with additional fans.

- Regularly clean radiators from dust.

- Avoid long loads at temperatures above 85°C — throttling may occur.


Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 5700M: Cheaper, But Without RTX

- Pros: Better price (laptops with RX 5700M were $300-400 cheaper).

- Cons: No hardware support for ray tracing, weaker in 4K.

NVIDIA RTX 3060 Mobile: The Younger Sibling

- Newer (2021), but in 2025, the RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile is about 15% faster in games without DLSS.

- RTX 3060 is more power-efficient (TDP 115W) and supports PCIe 4.0.

Intel Arc A770M: 2023 Alternative

- Comparable performance, but drivers are less stable.


Practical Tips

Power Supply: At Least 230W

Laptops with RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile come with adapters rated at 230-280W. Using less powerful units can lead to reduced performance.

Platform Compatibility

- Requires PCIe 3.0 x16.

- Recommended CPU no weaker than Intel Core i7-10750H or AMD Ryzen 7 4800H.

Drivers: Update Regularly

NVIDIA continues to release Game Ready Drivers for Turing even in 2025. For example, version 555.XX added support for DLSS 3.5.


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Support for RTX and DLSS.

- High performance at 1080p/1440p.

- Versatility (gaming, editing, 3D).

Cons:

- Limited VRAM for 2025.

- High heat output.

- Lack of hardware support for PCIe 4.0.


Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile?

This graphics card is a choice for those seeking a budget gaming laptop at an "above-average" level in 2025. It can be found in new devices priced $1100-1400, which is 40% cheaper than contemporary analogs like the RTX 4070 Mobile.

Recommended for:

- Gamers playing at Full HD/QHD.

- Designers and videographers requiring mobility.

- Enthusiasts willing to deal with manual cooling adjustments.

If you want maximum performance without compromises — look at the new RTX 40 series. But for many, the RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile remains the "golden mean."


Prices are current as of April 2025 for new devices. The specifications mentioned may vary depending on the laptop model.

Basic

Label Name
NVIDIA
Platform
Mobile
Launch Date
April 2020
Model Name
GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Mobile
Generation
GeForce 20 Mobile
Base Clock
1365MHz
Boost Clock
1560MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
Transistors
13,600 million
RT Cores
48
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.
384
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.
192
Foundry
TSMC
Process Size
12 nm
Architecture
Turing

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
8GB
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
1750MHz
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.
448.0 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.
99.84 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.
299.5 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.
19.17 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.
299.5 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.
9.777 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.
48
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.
3072
L1 Cache
64 KB (per SM)
L2 Cache
4MB
TDP
150W
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
7.5
Power Connectors
None
Shader Model
6.6
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.
64

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
9.777 TFLOPS
3DMark Time Spy
Score
10938

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
10.812 +10.6%
8.774 -10.3%
3DMark Time Spy
28395 +159.6%
15314 +40%