NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile: Power and Innovation in a Mobile Format

April 2025


Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile is a flagship mobile graphics card designed for those who demand maximum performance in gaming and professional tasks without being tied to a desktop PC. In this article, we will explore what makes this GPU unique, how it handles modern projects, and who should pay attention to it.


1. Architecture and Key Features

Ada Lovelace: The Foundation for Breakthroughs

The RTX 4080 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, which debuted in 2022. It is manufactured using a 4nm TSMC process, allowing for increased transistor density and reduced power consumption.

Unique Technologies

- RTX (Ray Tracing): Real-time ray tracing has become even more realistic thanks to the third generation of RT cores.

- DLSS 3.5: Artificial intelligence enhances performance and image quality. In "Performance" mode, the FPS boost reaches 80-100% compared to native resolution rendering.

- Reflex: Reduces input latency by 15-20 ms in esports games like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant.

- Support for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Although FSR is an AMD technology, NVIDIA ensured its compatibility, expanding optimization options for gamers.


2. Memory: Speed and Efficiency

GDDR6X and Bandwidth

The graphics card features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 192-bit bus. The bandwidth reaches 504 GB/s, which is 15% higher than that of the RTX 3080 Mobile. This allows for the processing of high-resolution textures and complex scenes without "stuttering."

Impact on Performance

- In open-world games like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, the memory capacity prevents "stuttering" even at ultra graphics settings.

- For professional tasks such as rendering in Blender, 12 GB is sufficient to work with 8K models.


3. Gaming Performance

Average FPS in Popular Titles

- Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, Ultra, RT Ultra, DLSS Balanced): 68-72 FPS.

- Alan Wake 2 (1440p, Ultra, Path Tracing, DLSS Quality): 85-90 FPS.

- Call of Duty: Warzone 3 (1080p, Extreme): 144+ FPS.

Ray Tracing: The Cost of Realism

Enabling ray tracing reduces FPS by 30-40%, but DLSS 3.5 compensates for these losses. For example, in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition at 1440p with RT and DLSS enabled, the game delivers stable 90 FPS compared to 60 FPS without upscaling.


4. Professional Tasks

CUDA and Specialized Cores

- 5888 CUDA cores: Speed up rendering in Blender by 40% compared to RTX 3080 Mobile.

- NVENC: Hardware video encoding in DaVinci Resolve reduces 4K export time by 25%.

- Support for OpenCL and OptiX: Useful for scientific computations and simulations in MATLAB or ANSYS.


5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP and Cooling Recommendations

The TDP of the RTX 4080 Mobile is 150-175 W. For stable operation, the laptop requires:

- A cooling system with 3-4 heat pipes and a vapor chamber.

- A chassis with improved ventilation (for example, ultra-thin models may throttle under load).

Practical Observations

- During gaming sessions, the GPU temperature remains around 75-82°C, which is safe for mobile chips.

- For extended use in professional applications, it is recommended to use cooling pads.


6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 7900M

- AMD Advantages: 16 GB of GDDR6, support for AV1 encoding.

- Disadvantages: Weaker ray tracing optimization (20-25% FPS loss with RT).

Intel Arc A770M

- Cheaper ($1200 versus $1800 for RTX 4080 Mobile) but lags in performance by 35-40% at 4K.

Conclusion

The RTX 4080 Mobile leads in gaming with ray tracing and in tasks where AI upscaling is important. AMD offers better price/memory ratio, while Intel provides budget solutions.


7. Practical Tips

Power Supply

The recommended power supply for the laptop is 280-330 W. For hybrid systems (e.g., with Intel Core i9-14900HX), it’s better to choose models with some power headroom.

Compatibility

- Platforms: Optimally works with 14th generation Intel processors and AMD Ryzen 8000 series.

- Drivers: Update via GeForce Experience — in 2025, NVIDIA is actively optimizing support for AI features.


8. Pros and Cons

Strengths

- Exceptional performance at 4K and with ray tracing.

- DLSS 3.5 — a "lifesaver" for FPS.

- Efficiency of the 4nm process.

Weaknesses

- Price: Laptops with RTX 4080 Mobile start at $2200.

- Cooling requirements: Thin ultrabooks are not suitable.


9. Final Conclusion

The RTX 4080 Mobile is the choice for:

- Gamers, who want to play in 4K with maximum settings.

- Professionals, needing a mobile workstation for rendering or editing.

- Technology enthusiasts, who value DLSS and ray tracing.

If your budget allows, this graphics card will be a reliable companion for the next 3-4 years, easily handling even the most demanding projects.


Prices and specifications are current as of April 2025. When choosing a device, please confirm the configuration with the manufacturer.

Basic

Label Name
NVIDIA
Platform
Mobile
Launch Date
January 2023
Model Name
GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile
Generation
GeForce 40 Mobile
Base Clock
1290MHz
Boost Clock
1665MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 4.0 x16
Transistors
35,800 million
RT Cores
58
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
TSMC
Process Size
4 nm
Architecture
Ada Lovelace

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.
192bit
Memory Clock
2250MHz
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.
432.0 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.
133.2 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.
386.3 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.
24.72 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.
386.3 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.
24.226 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.
58
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
48MB
TDP
110W
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
8.9
Power Connectors
None
Shader Model
6.7
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.
80

Benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p
Score
86 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p
Score
153 fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p
Score
198 fps
Cyberpunk 2077 1440p
Score
43 fps
GTA 5 2160p
Score
137 fps
GTA 5 1440p
Score
137 fps
FP32 (float)
Score
24.226 TFLOPS
3DMark Time Spy
Score
19286
Blender
Score
6500
OctaneBench
Score
559

Compared to Other GPU

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 2160p / fps
193 +124.4%
45 -47.7%
34 -60.5%
24 -72.1%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1440p / fps
292 +90.8%
67 -56.2%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 1080p / fps
310 +56.6%
72 -63.6%
Cyberpunk 2077 1440p / fps
11 -74.4%
FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
32.115 +32.6%
29.175 +20.4%
23.083 -4.7%
22.481 -7.2%
3DMark Time Spy
36233 +87.9%
9097 -52.8%
Blender
15026.3 +131.2%
2020.49 -68.9%
1064 -83.6%
OctaneBench
1328 +137.6%
163 -70.8%
89 -84.1%
47 -91.6%