NVIDIA started GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB sales 11 January 2022 at a recommended price of $799 . This is a high-end Ampere architecture desktop card based on 8 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 12 GB of GDDR6X memory clocked at 1.19 GHz are supplied, and together with 384 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is a dual-slot graphics card attached via PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 285 mm. 1x 12-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 350 Watt.

Primary details

Some basic facts about GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in the ranking	25
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	40.88
Power efficiency	13.76	of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
Architecture	Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code name	GA102
Market segment	Desktop
Release date	11 January 2022 (2 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$799	of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	8960	of 21760 (GeForce RTX 5090)
Core clock speed	1260 MHz	of 2610 MHz (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Boost clock speed	1710 MHz	of 3599 MHz (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	28,300 million	of 208,000 million (B200 SXM 192 GB)
Manufacturing process technology	8 nm	of 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)	350 Watt	of 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate	478.8	of 2,554 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Floating-point processing power	30.64 TFLOPS	of 109.7 (GeForce RTX 5090)
ROPs	96	of 192 (Radeon RX 7900 XTX)
TMUs	280	of 1280 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Tensor Cores	280	of 1216 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Ray Tracing Cores	70	of 170 (GeForce RTX 5090)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Interface	PCIe 4.0 x16
Length	285 mm
Width	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 12-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory type	GDDR6X
Maximum RAM amount	12 GB	of 294912 (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width	384 Bit	of 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	1188 MHz	of 20000 (RTX 5000 Ada Generation Mobile)
Memory bandwidth	912.4 GB/s	of 5,171 GB/s (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Shared memory	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors	1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI	+

API compatibility

APIs supported by GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX	12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model	6.6
OpenGL	4.6
OpenCL	3.0
Vulkan	1.3
CUDA	8.6

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

RTX 3080 12 GB 69.08

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

RTX 3080 12 GB 26651

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

RTX 3080 12 GB 217116

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

RTX 3080 12 GB 44533

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

RTX 3080 12 GB 35922

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

RTX 3080 12 GB 549644

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

RTX 3080 12 GB 51

Unigine Heaven 3.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.

RTX 3080 12 GB 102294

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

Full HD	189
1440p	122
4K	87

Cost per frame, $

1080p	4.23
1440p	6.55
4K	9.18

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

130−140

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130
Battlefield 5	220−230
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120
Cyberpunk 2077	130−140
Far Cry 5	110−120
Far Cry New Dawn	160−170
Forza Horizon 4	230−240
Hitman 3	120−130
Horizon Zero Dawn	250−260
Metro Exodus	150−160
Red Dead Redemption 2	120−130
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	290−300
Watch Dogs: Legion	150−160

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130
Battlefield 5	220−230
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120
Cyberpunk 2077	130−140
Far Cry 5	110−120
Far Cry New Dawn	160−170
Forza Horizon 4	230−240
Hitman 3	120−130
Horizon Zero Dawn	250−260
Metro Exodus	150−160
Red Dead Redemption 2	120−130
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	356
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	140−150
Watch Dogs: Legion	150−160

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	140−150
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	120−130
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	110−120
Cyberpunk 2077	130−140
Far Cry 5	110−120
Forza Horizon 4	230−240
Hitman 3	120−130
Horizon Zero Dawn	263
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	314
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	165
Watch Dogs: Legion	95

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

120−130

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	160−170
Far Cry New Dawn	110−120

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	80−85
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	85−90
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	80−85
Cyberpunk 2077	70−75
Far Cry 5	80−85
Forza Horizon 4	270−280
Hitman 3	100−110
Horizon Zero Dawn	206
Metro Exodus	116
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	236
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	120−130
Watch Dogs: Legion	230−240

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

110−120

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	85−90
Far Cry New Dawn	65−70
Hitman 3	78
Horizon Zero Dawn	220−230
Metro Exodus	100−110
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	132

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	55−60
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	50−55
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	50−55
Cyberpunk 2077	30−35
Far Cry 5	50−55
Forza Horizon 4	110−120
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	142
Watch Dogs: Legion	55

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

70−75

Closest competitors

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop graphics cards.

Radeon RX 6900 XT 100.54

Radeon RX 7900 GRE 100.49

GeForce RTX 3090 100.3

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB 100

GeForce RTX 3080 94.66

Radeon RX 6800 XT 93.92

Radeon RX 7800 XT 91.27

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is Radeon RX 7900 GRE, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 2 positions in our ranking.