Specs Appeal: Comparing Nvidia RTX 4000 Series to RTX 3000 and 2000

The RTX 4090 Founders Edition from Nvidia

On September 20, 2022, Nvidia unveiled its newest GPU series, the GeForce RTX 4000, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. As of now, the RTX 4000 series consists of three graphics cards: the RTX 4090, the RTX 4080 with 16GB VRAM, and the RTX 4080 with 12GB VRAM. If you consider upgrading your computer with one of the latest Nvidia graphics cards, you may want to compare their specs with the previous-gen counterparts.

For now, the RTX 4090 is the most powerful GPU in the line-up. Still, customers can expect the company to unveil a beefier Ti-variant with even better specs, as the RTX 4090 does not utilize everything the Ada Lovelace architecture can offer.

The new graphics cards provide the following benefits when compared to their predecessors:

More CUDA cores.
More memory in the RTX 4080 model.
Significantly more ray-tracing cores upgraded to the third generation.
More tensor cores upgraded to the fourth generation.
Higher boost and game clocks.
More streaming multiprocessors.
Faster and more efficient dual AV1 encoders.
Third-gen DLSS support.

Benefits of the new generation are not cheap. Even though the RTX 4090 retains the previous $1,499 price tag, the RTX 4080 models come at significantly higher prices. Besides, the new graphics cards consume more power and require more powerful PSUs with PCIe Gen 5 cables.

Nvidia RTX 4000 series Ada Lovelace launch

RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090 Ti vs RTX 3090

	RTX 4090	RTX 3090 Ti	RTX 3090
Architecture	Ada Lovelace	Ampere
CUDA Cores	16,384	10,752	10,496
RT Cores	128 3rd-gen	84 2nd-gen	82 2nd-gen
Tensor Cores	512 4th-gen	336 3rd-gen	328 3rd-gen
Streaming Multiprocessors	128	84	82
Clocks	2.23 GHz 2.52 GHz	1.67 GHz 1.86 GHz	1.4 GHz 1.7 GHz
Memory	GDDR6X
Memory Capacity	24GB 384-bit
Max Temp	90C	92C	93C
Power	450W >850W PSU		350W >750W PSU
Price	$1599	$1999	$1499

The official benchmarks from Nvidia showing how the RTX 4000 GPUs compare to their predecessors

RTX 4080 vs RTX 3080 vs RTX 2080S vs RTX 2080

	RTX 4080 16	RTX 4080 12	RTX 3080 12	RTX 3080 10	RTX 2080S	RTX 2080
Architecture	Ada Lovelace		Ampere		Turing
CUDA Cores	9728	7680	8960	8704	3072	2944
RT Cores	76 3rd-gen	60 3rd-gen	70 2nd-gen	68 2nd-gen	48 1st-gen	46 1st-gen
Tensor Cores	304 4th-gen	240 4th-gen	280 3rd-gen	272 3rd-gen	384 2nd-gen	368 2nd-gen
Streaming Multiprocessors	76	60	70	68	48	46
Clocks	2.21 GHz 2.51 GHz	2.31 GHz 2.61 GHz	1.26 GHz 1.71 GHz	1.44 GHz 1.71 GHz	1.65 GHz 1.82 GHz	1.52 GHz 1.8 GHz
Memory	GDDR6X				GDDR6
Memory Capacity	16GB 256-bit	12GB 192-bit	12GB 384-bit	10GB 320-bit	8GB 256-bit
Max Temp	90C		93C		89C	88C
Power	320W 750W PSU	285W 700W PSU	350W 750W PSU	320W 750W PSU	250W 650W PSU	225W 650W PSU
Price	$1,199	$899	$799	$699	$699

The Nvidia RTX 4090 will go on sale on October 12, 2022. As for the Nvidia RTX 4080, Nvidia is not ready to announce the launch day, and the company says customers can expect these graphics cards to hit stores somewhere in November 2022.

Do you plan to upgrade to the new Nvidia graphics cards?