NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB: Power for Gamers and Professionals

April 2025


Architecture and Key Features

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB graphics card is built on the Ampere architecture, which remains relevant even years after its release, thanks to optimizations from drivers and software. The chips are manufactured using Samsung's 8-nanometer process, ensuring a balance between performance and energy efficiency.

Key technologies:

- RTX (Real-Time Ray Tracing): Hardware-accelerated real-time ray tracing, improved compared to Turing.

- DLSS 3.0: Artificial intelligence enhances resolution and FPS with minimal loss in detail.

- NVIDIA Reflex: Reduces latency in games, which is critical for esports.

- Support for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Compatibility with AMD’s technology for games where DLSS is not available.


Memory: Speed and Capacity

The card is equipped with 20 GB GDDR6X memory with a 320-bit bus. The bandwidth reaches 760 GB/s (19 Gbps per module), which is 23% higher than the original RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB. This amount of memory allows for:

- Loading high-resolution textures without stuttering.

- Handling 8K video rendering and complex 3D scenes.

- Ensuring stable FPS in modded games that increase VRAM consumption (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077 Ultra HD Texture Pack).


Gaming Performance: 4K Without Compromises

In 2025, the RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB remains a top choice for gaming at 4K. Average FPS examples (with DLSS 3.0, Ultra settings):

- Cyberpunk 2077: 65-70 FPS (with ray tracing), 85-90 FPS (without RTX).

- Alan Wake 2: 75 FPS (RTX Ultra + DLSS Quality).

- Starfield: 90 FPS (native 4K, without upscaling).

At 1440p, the card achieves 120+ FPS in most games, and for 1080p, it's more than sufficient—here the CPU is more important. Ray tracing reduces FPS by 25-40%, but DLSS 3.0 compensates for this by generating frames.


Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

With 8704 CUDA cores and 20 GB of memory, the card is in high demand for:

- Video Editing: Rendering in DaVinci Resolve is accelerated by 30% compared to the RTX 2080 Ti.

- 3D Modeling: In Blender, rendering a BMW scene takes ~7 minutes compared to ~12 minutes on the RTX 3070.

- Scientific Calculations: Support for CUDA and OpenCL makes the card useful for machine learning and simulations.

However, for tasks requiring double precision (FP64), professional cards from the NVIDIA A series are better suited.


Power Consumption and Cooling

TDP of the card is 350 W, requiring a thoughtful cooling system:

- Recommended Coolers: Three-slot solutions (e.g., ASUS ROG Strix or MSI Suprim X).

- Case: At least 3 intake fans, with free space around the graphics card.

- Temperatures: Under load — 72-78°C (depends on the model).


Comparison with Competitors

Main competitors in 2025:

- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB: Cheaper (~$699) but weaker in ray tracing and lacks an equivalent to DLSS 3.0.

- Intel Arc Battlemage A780: Attractive in price (~$549) but lags in drivers and professional software support.

The RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB outperforms the RX 7900 XT in 4K gaming with RTX by 15-20%, but requires a more powerful PSU.


Practical Advice

- Power Supply: At least 750 W (recommended 850 W Gold/Platinum).

- Compatibility: PCIe 4.0 x16, requires a motherboard with UEFI BIOS.

- Drivers: Regularly update through GeForce Experience — NVIDIA actively optimizes older cards for new games.


Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Outstanding performance at 4K.

- 20 GB of memory for future games and professional tasks.

- Support for DLSS 3.0 and Reflex.

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- Price starting from $799 (new models).

- Requires a large case.


Final Conclusion

The RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB is suitable for:

- Gamers wanting to play in 4K with maximum settings.

- Professionals needing a versatile card for editing and 3D work.

- Enthusiasts valuing future-proof technology.

Despite the release of new models, this card remains a good choice due to its balance of price, memory, and support for AI technologies. If your budget is limited, consider the AMD RX 7900 XT, but for a complete immersion in the world of RTX and DLSS, there are no alternatives.

Basic

Label Name
NVIDIA
Platform
Desktop
Launch Date
January 2022
Model Name
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB
Generation
GeForce 30
Base Clock
1335MHz
Boost Clock
1665MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 4.0 x16
Transistors
28,300 million
RT Cores
80
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.
320
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.
320
Foundry
Samsung
Process Size
8 nm
Architecture
Ampere

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
20GB
Memory Type
GDDR6X
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.
320bit
Memory Clock
1188MHz
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.
760.3 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.
186.5 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.
532.8 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.
34.10 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.
532.8 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.
33.418 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.
80
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.
10240
L1 Cache
128 KB (per SM)
L2 Cache
6MB
TDP
350W
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
1x 12-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.
112
Suggested PSU
750W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
33.418 TFLOPS
Blender
Score
5944
OctaneBench
Score
629

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
37.936 +13.5%
31.253 -6.5%
28.325 -15.2%
Blender
15026.3 +152.8%
2020.49 -66%
1064 -82.1%
OctaneBench
1328 +111.1%
163 -74.1%
89 -85.9%
47 -92.5%