NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3080 | GeForce RTX 4070 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 10GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bandwidth | 760 GB/s | 504 GB/s |
| Shaders | 8704 | 5888 |
| Boost Clock | 1710 MHz | 2475 MHz |
| TDP | 320W | 200W |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ada Lovelace |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 4,427 | 3,862 |
| Best Price | $699 | $579 |
| Value Score | 35/100 | 51/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070: Which Should You Buy?
These two land on top of each other: 97.8 fps versus 96.4 fps at 1440p ultra, a 1% difference you will not notice in a game. The decision comes down to price, VRAM and power draw rather than speed.
Pricing settles it: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is both faster and 21% cheaper at $579 versus $699. There is no scenario in this pairing where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the better buy at these prices.
Two things beyond raw speed: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 draws 120W less (200W versus 320W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is 3 years newer (2023 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.