NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition review: A modest affair

Meet NVIDIA's flagship Super card

The fastest of the Super cards is here at last. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super caps off NVIDIA's mid-generation refresh of its GeForce RTX graphics cards, slotting in neatly between the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2070 Super. 

Here's an overview of its specifications:

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is still king of the hill however, featuring 34 percent more CUDA cores than the GeForce RTX 2080 Super. That said, those of you hoping for a GeForce RTX 2060 Super-sized improvement over the GeForce RTX 2080 will be disappointed. The GeForce RTX 2080 Super represents a modest improvement over the GeForce RTX 2080 at best, and if you already own the latter card, there's little reason to upgrade.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Super is a direct replacement for the GeForce RTX 2080, rather than any sort of step up. In addition to cramming in more CUDA, Tensor, and RT cores, NVIDIA has bumped up the core and memory clocks, so you get slightly higher memory bandwidth as well.

Power consumption has increased as well, and the Total Graphics Power (TGP) has gone up from 215W to 250W, the same as the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Unlike TDP, which refers to the maximum amount of heat that has to be dissipated by the cooling system, TGP defines the power consumption of the entire card. 

The GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition is the same size as the GeForce RTX 2070 Super before it, and save for the branding on its shroud, looks pretty much identical. It's also powered by one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector, although I expect some custom custom cards will bump that up to a dual 8-pin configuration. 

As with the previous Founders Edition models, the machined aluminum shroud is glorious to look at and the card just has a really reassuring heft to it. The chrome plate and its mirror-like finish makes an appearance here as well, and it's simply stunning to look at. I really wish NVIDIA would make its Founders Edition cards more widely available, if only because of how good they look.

The SLI connector is protected by a rubberized cover, which prevents it from interrupting the otherwise uniform aesthetic of the backplate.

Finally, you'll find the same single HDMI 2.0b, three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, and a USB-C port that supports VirtualLink on the rear. 

Test setup

The detailed specifications of our new graphics card testbed system is as follows:

• Intel Core i7-8086K (4.0GHz, 12MB L3 cache)
• ASUS ROG Strix Maximus X Hero (Intel Z370)
• 4 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000 (Auto timings: CAS 15-15-15-35)
• Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
• ASUS PB287Q, 4K monitor

The full line-up of graphics cards tested are listed below:

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super Founders Edition
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition

For those of you wondering, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and 5700 weren't included because they aren't comparable and no match for the GeForce GTX 2080 Super at all.

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Next up, here's a list of all the benchmarks used:

• 3DMark
• Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Far Cry 5
• Metro Exodus
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Tom Clancy's The Division 2

3DMark

The synthetic 3DMark benchmark tests graphics and computational performance at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K. A series of two graphics test, one physics test, and then a combined test stresses your hardware in turn to assess its performance.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Super is only slightly faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 in 3DMark. In Fire Strike Ultra, it was just 3 percent ahead. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is also still clearly the undisputed king here, coming in at roughly 20 percent quicker than the GeForce RTX 2080 Super. 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

Ashes of the Singularity has long been the poster child for the performance benefits a low-level API like DirectX 12 can bring. It is based on the Nitrous engine and can be extremely punishing thanks to the huge number of onscreen units and the sheer level of detail accorded to each unit. However, the CPU does become the limiting factor at lower resolutions and settings. 

You only start to see more significant differences between the cards at the more demanding settings, but even then a 4K resolution and Crazy settings, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super was only a few frames ahead of the GeForce RTX 2080. 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Mankind Divided features just about every trick to make your game look pretty, including things like volumetric and dynamic lighting, screenspace reflections, and cloth physics. Even though it was released in 2016, the game is capable of bringing even the most powerful systems to their knees. 

The GeForce RTX 2080 Super managed to squeeze out a larger lead here, and it had around a 7 percent advantage at 1440p and Ultra settings. There was still no challenging the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti though, and that card was roughly 15 percent ahead of the GeForce RTX 2080 Super. 

Far Cry 5

The latest installment in the Far Cry series is actually an AMD launch title, so it'll be interesting to see how the green camp fares here. 

There's not much difference at 1080p resolutions where the CPU seems to be somewhat of a limiting factor, but as you move to the 4K resolution, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super had a roughly 12 percent advantage over its predecessor. 

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus runs better in DirectX 12, so that's the setting we chose to run our benchmarks at. There's just one caveat though – actual in-game performance is generally better than the results you get in the in-game benchmark, so this is best taken as an indicator of relative performance, rather than the absolute numbers you can expect in game.

Compared to Far Cry 5, Metro Exodus scales a lot better between different cards at the lower resolutions, and the GeForce RTX 2080 Super was just under 6 percent quicker than the GeForce RTX 2080. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Shadow of War isn't as demanding as some of the other games here, and the GeForce RTX 2080 Super pottered ahead to a 10 percent lead at a 4K resolution and Ultra settings. 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Like Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs better in DirectX 12 as well. DLSS and ray tracing have been added to the game already, but these numbers are obtained without those features turned on.

Things were much closer in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, with the GeForce RTX 2080 even somehow eking out a small lead over its Super counterpart in some benchmarks. That aside, the difference between the two cards was small, coming up to just 6 percent at a 4K resolution and Ultra settings. 

Tom Clancy's The Division 2

Division 2 is another new addition to our benchmark suite, and it replaces 2016's The Division. We've also shifted to DirectX 12 here as well because of the performance gains offered by the low-level API. 

At 4K and Ultra settings, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super was ahead of its predecessor by roughly 8 percent. In comparison, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti was faster than the former card by a good 17 percent. 

Temperature and power consumption

The temperature measurements were obtained after running 40 loops of 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme's stress test and checking the peak sustained temperature. Similarly, the total system power consumption figures were read off a power meter during a run of Fire Strike Extreme.

The peak temperature numbers pretty much scaled according to performance, with the GeForce RTX 2080 Super slotting in between the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and 2080. All the cards use the same cooler too, so the higher temperatures are a direct reflection of the more powerful GPUs. 

The same goes for power consumption, with the GeForce RTX 2080 Super easing past the GeForce RTX 2080 in terms of power drawn. Oddly enough, it also drew more power at idle than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, even though the overall power numbers were still lower.

The GeForce RTX 2080 gets slightly faster

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super may be the fastest of all the Super cards, but it's also the least exciting. Compared to the GeForce RTX 2080, it's anywhere from 5 to 10 percent faster, although it tended to skew toward the lower end of that range. On the other hand, the GeForce RTX 2060 Super was often a good 20 percent quicker than the GeForce RTX 2060, making for a seriously impressive mid-generation upgrade. 

To be fair, the Founders Edition models for the Super cards don't come with factory overclocks, while the first-generation GeForce RTX Founders Edition cards did, so it's not an entirely fair comparison. Custom cards from NVIDIA's partners will feature more aggressive clock speeds, so the GeForce RTX 2080 Super will see slightly better performance. Having said that, I don't expect the clock speed increases to translate to anything significant, and the GeForce RTX 2080 Super will still remain a rather modest offering with respect to the GeForce RTX 2080. 

It also doesn't come anywhere close to dethroning the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which means that GeForce RTX 2080 Ti owners who paid the absurd prices for the card are no doubt heaving a sigh of relief (myself included). 

Taken on it's own, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super is hardly a bad card. It's still really, really fast, and it makes perfect sense in NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX line-up, which includes the three new Super models. It's only when you compare it to the GeForce RTX 2080 that things start to seem lackluster and disappointing, but that's partly because of the expectations set by the excellent GeForce RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super.

And speaking of the GeForce RTX 2070 Super, it's worth pointing out that its strong performance means that it is encroaching to some extent upon the territory usually occupied by the GeForce RTX 2080-class card. The performance gap between the GeForce RTX 2070 and 2080 was much wider than it is for their Super counterparts, which means that I can't help but ask whether it's worth paying US$200 more for the GeForce RTX 2080 Super in exchange for a much smaller performance boost. Ultimately, it seems like NVIDIA may be giving the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti too much respect, and it'd have been really nice to see a more ambitious take on the GeForce RTX 2080 Super.  

Nevertheless, at the same US$699 price tag, NVIDIA is still offering better value-for-money than before with the performance bump at the same price point, and if you own an older card and are looking to upgrade to a high-end Turing model, there's no reason why the GeForce RTX 2080 Super shouldn't be on your list. After all, AMD doesn't really have an answer at this price point yet.

To further sweeten the deal, NVIDIA is also offering copies of Control and Wolfenstein: Youngblood with purchases of the GeForce RTX 2080 Super card or desktop PC. The offer runs for a limited time only, but applies to most of NVIDIA's partners including ASUS, Gigabyte, Galaxy, MSI, Palit, Zotac, and more. 

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