Nvidia RTX 3080: PCIe 4.0 vs 3.0 scaling analysis

1. Introduction2. Testing Methodology3. 3DMark Synthetic4. Control5. Death Stranding6. The Division 27. Far Cry New Dawn8. Gears 59. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint10. Horizon Zero Dawn11. Metro Exodus12. Middle Earth: Shadow of War13. Red Dead Redemption 214. Shadow of the Tomb Raider15. Total War Saga: Troy16. RTX On - Control17. RTX On - Metro Exodus18. RTX On - Shadow of the Tomb Raider19. Performance Summary (15 Game Average)20. Closing Thoughts21. View All Pages

Driver Notes

• All Nvidia GPUs (except RTX 3000) were benchmarked with the 452.06 driver.
• RTX 3080 was benchmarked with the 456.16 driver supplied to press.
• All AMD GPUs were benchmarked with the Adrenalin 20.8.2 driver.

Test Systems

Our first test system is a custom built rig from PCSpecialist, based on Intel's latest Comet Lake-S platform. You can read more about it over HERE, and configure your own system from PCSpecialist HERE.

CPU	Intel Core i9-10900K Overclocked to 5.1GHz on all cores
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Wi-Fi
Memory	Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz (4 X 8GB) CL 18-22-22-42
Graphics Card	Varies
System Drive	500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2
Games Drive	2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5″ SSD
Chassis	Fractal Meshify S2 Blackout Tempered Glass
CPU Cooler	Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Hydro Series
Power Supply	Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
Operating System	Windows 10 2004

We also tested with a purpose-built AMD Ryzen machine, to enable PCIe 4.0 testing. This is uses a Ryzen 9 3900XT on the X570 platform.

CPU	Ryzen 9 3900XT Overclocked to 4.4GHz on all cores
Motherboard	ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus Wi-Fi
Memory	Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz (4 X 8GB) CL 18-22-22-42
Graphics Card	Varies
System Drive	500GB Samsung 960 Evo M.2
Games Drive	1TB Kingston KC600 2.5″ SSD
Chassis	Fractal Meshify S2 Tempered Glass
CPU Cooler	Corsair H115i Pro RGB Hydro Series
Power Supply	Corsair 1200W HX Series Modular 80 Plus Platinum
Operating System	Windows 10 2004

Software and Games List

• 3DMark Fire Strike & Fire Strike Ultra (DX11 Synthetic)
• 3DMark Time Spy (DX12 Synthetic)
• 3DMark Port Royal (DXR Synthetic)
• Control (DX12)
• Death Stranding (DX12)
• The Division 2 (DX12)
• Far Cry New Dawn (DX11)
• Gears 5 (DX12)
• Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (Vulkan)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro: Exodus (DX12)
• Middle Earth: Shadow of War (DX11)
• Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DX12)
• Total War Saga: Troy (DX11)

We run each benchmark/game three times, and present mean averages in our graphs. We use OCAT to measure average frame rates as well as 1% low values across our three runs.

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