NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
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 | Radeon RX 7800 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 10GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 760 GB/s | 624 GB/s |
| Shaders | 8704 | 3840 |
| Boost Clock | 1710 MHz | 2430 MHz |
| TDP | 320W | 263W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 3.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 4,427 | 4,154 |
| Best Price | $699 | $499 |
| Value Score | 35/100 | 64/100 |
Verdict
The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Which Should You Buy?
The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is 10% faster at 1440p ultra (105.8 fps against 96.4 fps). That is roughly one settings notch — enough to matter if you are chasing a specific refresh rate, not enough to rescue a bad price.
Pricing settles it: the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is both faster and 40% cheaper at $499 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: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT carries 16GB against 10GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 10GB cards age badly; and the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT draws 57W less (263W versus 320W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is 3 years newer (2023 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.