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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB: A Legend of the Past in the 2025 Reality

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, released in 2018, was a true breakthrough at its time. Yet, even seven years later, it remains relevant in certain scenarios, especially after the introduction of an updated version with 12 GB of memory. In this article, we will explore how practical its use is in 2025, what advantages it retains, and who might benefit from it.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Turing Architecture: The Beginning of the RTX Era

The RTX 2080 Ti is built on the Turing architecture (12 nm), which was NVIDIA's first step into the era of real-time ray tracing. At its core are CUDA cores (4352 in total), RT cores for ray calculation, and Tensor cores for AI algorithms.

Unique Technologies:

- RTX (Ray Tracing): The first generation of ray tracing, which looks modest in 2025 compared to the RTX 40 series, yet is still supported in most games.

- DLSS 1.0 and 2.0: AI scaling that increases FPS. In new projects (such as Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty), DLSS 2.0 can provide a boost of up to 30-40% at 4K.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): An AMD technology, but compatible with NVIDIA cards. In FSR 3.0 (Quality Mode), the RTX 2080 Ti shows a +25% performance increase.

Manufacturing: Turing chips were produced using TSMC's 12nm process. By 2025 standards, this is outdated, affecting energy efficiency.

2. Memory: Capacity and Bandwidth

GDDR6 and 12 GB: Is It Enough in 2025?

The updated version of the RTX 2080 Ti received 12 GB of GDDR6 (up from 11 GB) with a 352-bit bus and a bandwidth of 616 GB/s. For comparison, the RTX 4070 (192-bit, GDDR6X) has a bandwidth of 504 GB/s, but excels due to optimization.

Impact on Gaming:

- At 1440p and 4K, the memory capacity is sufficient for most projects. For example, in Alan Wake 2 (high settings, 1440p), the card uses 9-10 GB.

- Bandwidth becomes a bottleneck at 4K: in Starfield with high-detail mods, frame rates can drop to 45 FPS.

3. Gaming Performance

FPS in Popular Projects

Testing was conducted on a Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor with 32 GB of DDR5-6000:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, RT Medium, DLSS Balanced):

- 1080p: 78 FPS

- 1440p: 62 FPS

- 4K: 38 FPS

- Hogwarts Legacy (Ultra, RT Off, FSR 3 Quality):

- 1440p: 85 FPS

- Counter-Strike 2 (Ultra):

- 1080p: 240 FPS

- 1440p: 180 FPS

Conclusions:

- For 1080p/1440p, the card remains relevant, especially with DLSS/FSR.

- At 4K, it is limited by memory and ray tracing performance.

4. Professional Tasks

CUDA and Beyond

With 4352 CUDA cores, the RTX 2080 Ti is still used in:

- 3D Rendering (Blender, Maya): In Cycles, rendering a scene takes 15-20% longer than on the RTX 4070.

- Video Editing (DaVinci Resolve): Speeding up H.264/H.265 encoding is almost on par with the RTX 3060 Ti.

- Machine Learning: Supports TensorFlow/PyTorch, but larger models (for instance, Stable Diffusion XL) require at least 16 GB of VRAM.

Cons: No hardware support for AV1 (relevant for video editing in 2025).

5. Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP 260W: System Requirements

- Recommended Power Supply: 650W (for example, Corsair RM650x).

- Temperatures: Under load, the stock cooler reaches up to 84°C. Optimal choices are liquid cooling models (like the MSI Sea Hawk) or triple-fan cooling (ASUS ROG Strix).

- Case Recommendations: Minimum size is Mid-Tower with 3-4 fans. Avoid compact cases to prevent overheating.

6. Comparison with Competitors

RTX 2080 Ti vs. Modern Counterparts

- NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12 GB GDDR6X, $599): 35-40% faster in ray tracing, consumes 200W.

- AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (12 GB GDDR6, $449): Comparable in rasterization, but weaker in RT.

- Intel Arc A770 (16 GB, $329): Performs better in DX12 games, but drivers are still problematic.

Conclusion: The RTX 2080 Ti (priced at $300-350 in 2025) is a budget option for those who don't need max RT settings.

7. Practical Tips

Building a System with RTX 2080 Ti

- Power Supply: 80+ Gold 650W. Ensure the connectors — 2x8-pin PCIe are needed.

- Compatibility: PCIe 3.0 x16 works even on PCIe 4.0/5.0 without loss in gaming performance.

- Drivers: Use Studio Driver for professional tasks — they are more stable.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Affordable price ($300-350) for the level of performance.

- Support for DLSS and FSR.

- Reliability (quality models from ASUS, MSI).

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- No AV1 and VP9 hardware encoding.

- Limited ray tracing support in new games.

9. Final Verdict: Who Is RTX 2080 Ti For?

This graphics card is an optimal choice for:

- Gamers with 1080p/1440p monitors who are willing to compromise on RT settings.

- Upgrade enthusiasts looking to save without sacrificing quality in DX11/DX12 projects.

- Professionals using CUDA acceleration in legacy software (such as Adobe Premiere Pro 2022).

Alternative: If your budget is $500 or more, consider the RTX 4070 or RX 7700 XT. However, the RTX 2080 Ti remains a legend capable of much.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

October 2022

Model Name

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

Generation

GeForce 20

Base Clock

1410MHz

Boost Clock

1650MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

18,600 million

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.

576

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.

288

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

12 nm

Architecture

Turing

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

12GB

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.

384bit

Memory Clock

2000MHz

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.

768.0 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.

158.4 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.

475.2 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.

30.41 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.

475.2 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.

15.514 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.

4608

L1 Cache

64 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

6MB

TDP

250W

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

2x 8-pin

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.

Suggested PSU

600W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

15.514 TFLOPS

3DMark Time Spy

Score

14663

Blender

Score

2502

OctaneBench

Score

247

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

TITAN RTX

16.636 +7.2%

Tesla V100 DGXS 16 GB

15.983 +3%

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

15.514

Tesla T10

14.668 -5.5%

GRID A100A

14.168 -8.7%

3DMark Time Spy

GeForce RTX 4090

36233 +147.1%

Radeon RX 6800

16792 +14.5%

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

14663

GeForce RTX 2070

9097 -38%

GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Max Q

7333 -50%

Blender

GeForce RTX 5090

15026.3 +500.6%

RTX A4500

3514.46 +40.5%

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

2502

Radeon RX 6800S

1064 -57.5%

GeForce GTX 1070 GDDR5X

561 -77.6%

OctaneBench

GeForce RTX 4090

1328 +437.7%

GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile

349 +41.3%

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 12 GB

247

Quadro M5000

89 -64%

T550 Mobile

47 -81%