Gigabyte RTX 4080 Gaming OC Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Gigabyte RTX 4080 Gaming OC3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Time Spy Extreme5. Game Benchmarks6. Clock Speed7. GPU Temperatures8. Memory Temperatures9. Acoustics10. Noise-Normalised Temperatures11. Power Draw12. Overclocking13. Closing Thoughts14. View All Pages

Following on from our day-1 review of the Nvidia RTX 4080 Founders Edition, today we are back with a look at our first AIB model. Enter the Gigabyte RTX 4080 Gaming OC. If it looks familiar, Gigabyte has not changed much from the RTX 4090 Gaming OC that we reviewed a few short weeks ago, but what does that mean for the smaller AD103 silicon? We test thermals, acoustics, overclocking and more to find out.

While the shroud and size of the Gigabyte RTX 4080 Gaming OC may appear identical to that of the RTX 4090 Gaming OC, it's interesting to note that there are actually some differences between the two. For one, the RTX 4080 actually has an extra heatpipe – an interesting decision considering the 4080 is a lower power GPU. The PCB has also been tweaked, with a cut-back VRM compared to the RTX 4090.

We still find a huge, 3.5 slot design however, as well as dual-BIOS, a 30MHz factory overclock and an increased power limit. Let's find out how the Gaming OC compares to the Founders Edition.

	RTX 4090	RTX 4080	RTX 3090 Ti	RTX 3090	RTX 3080 Ti	RTX 3080
Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	Samsung 8N	Samsung 8N	Samsung 8N	Samsung 8N
SMs	128	76	84	82	80	68
CUDA Cores	16384	9728	10752	10496	10240	8704
Tensor Cores	512	304	336	328	320	272
RT Cores	128	76	84	82	80	68
Texture Units	512	304	336	328	320	272
ROPs	176	112	112	112	112	96
GPU Boost Clock	2520 MHz	2505 MHz	1860 MHz	1695 MHz	1665 MHz	1710 MHz
Memory Data Rate	21 Gbps	22.4 Gbps	21 Gbps	19.5 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps
L2 Cache	73729 KB	65536 KB	6144 KB	6144 KB	6144 KB	5120 KB
Total Video Memory	24GB GDDR6X	16GB GDDR6X	24GB GDDR6X	24GB GDDR6X	12GB GDDR6X	10GB GDDR6X
Memory Interface	384-bit	256-bit	384-bit	384-bit	384-bit	320-bit
Memory Bandwidth	1008 GB/Sec	716.8 GB/Sec	1008 GB/Sec	936 GB/Sec	912 GB/Sec	760 GB/Sec
TGP	450W	320W	450W	350W	350W	320W

First, for a quick spec recap. RTX 4080 uses the AD103 die, and this is notably smaller than AD102, measuring 378.6mm². Accordingly, transistor count is reduced from 76.3 billion, down to 45.9 billion. The fundamental building blocks are still the same of course, with the RTX 4080 offering a total of 84 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), each housing 256 CUDA Cores, for a total of 9728. We also find 84 RT cores, 336 Tensor cores, 336 Texture Units, and 112 ROPs.

TSMC's N4 node has Nvidia cranking up the clock speed significantly this generation, with the RTX 4080 sporting a 2505MHz rated boost clock. Gigabyte has increased this further with a 30MHz factory overclock.

The memory configuration is another area where AD103 has been cut-back significantly. The memory interface has been reduced to 256-bit, and even with 16GB GDDR6X running at 22.4Gbps, that cuts memory bandwidth down to 716.6GB/s. That said, there has been a substantial upgrade to the L2 cache with the Ada architecture, with the RTX 4080 now offering 65.5MB, compared to just 6MB for GA102.

Considering RTX 4080 is notably cut-down versus the RTX 4090, rated power draw is lower, with a 320W TGP. Gigabyte has bumped this up slightly however, with a 340W limit for the Gaming OC.

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