NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 vs AMD Radeon R9 290X

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 is a desktop graphics card that launched in Q3 2018 with a MSRP of $699. It is built on the Turing GPU microarchitecture (codename TU104) and is manufactured on a 12 nm process.

Memory

The RTX 2080 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, with a 1,750 MHz memory clock and a 256 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 448 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The RTX 2080 includes 2,944 CUDA cores, the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 1,515 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 1,710 MHz. Complementing the processing units are 184 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 64 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing. Additionally, the GPU features 368 tensor cores optimized for AI-accelerated workloads and 46 RT cores dedicated to real-time ray tracing calculations.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The RTX 2080 occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4a, USB Type-C display connections. NVIDIA recommends a power supply of at least 550 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 215 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The RTX 2080 has the 40th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 543 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 38.51% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Its 40,278 score and $699 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 57.62. This is the 58th best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.