What 3080 is worth its current MSRP right now?

[MisterC006]

Hi all, 
This is my first post here, so let me know if I need to do something different.

I've got some money set aside for a 3080, max I'm looking to spend is about $900 USD.
I was looking at the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING, 10G-P5-3897-KL, since I can get one on Amazon for MSRP right now.

(EVGA, how many modifiers do you need to tell us that this card is slightly better than your other cards?)

I would love to know if someone has a good list of benchmarks for the 3000 series or does that even matter anymore?
I'm upgrading from a 1060 3gb, so this is already going to be a big jump for me, and the 80 seems to be a good spot that I'll be happy with preformance for several years. That being said, I do have a 5600x, so I might gain something from the whole AMD bar thing. Never really payed attention to it since it didn't seem to actually beat the 3080 in performance.

Thank you!

[Middcore]

Not quite sure what you're asking. All 3080's perform basically the same.

 

The RX 6800 XT performs comparably to the 3080, trading blows from game to game (although anything with ray tracing on will be better on the 3080),and you can get them for under $700 right now. The 6900 XT beats the 3080 clean (again except in ray tracing) and you can get them for $7-800. 

[Rivettz]

Save your money and wait until Cyber Monday. Prices are falling every day and its growing more common to find $500 - $600 Used 3080s on Ebay and Used Market depending on where you are.

[RONOTHAN##]

11 minutes ago, MisterC006 said:

Never really payed attention to it since it didn't seem to actually beat the 3080 in performance.

In ray tracing sure, but in everything else a 6900 XT (which, for the most part, is the same price as a 3080) will perform a fair amount better, especially if you overclock the cards. Heck, my overclocked 6900 XT, pretty mediocre silicon quality I might add, matches a 3090 Ti in Time Spy Extreme graphics score. There are definitely reasons to go Nvidia over AMD, but game performance isn't really one of them. 

 

Realistically, the difference between any two 3080s is pretty minimal. Get one with a bigger cooler and you should be good to go. If you go 6900 XT, it gets a bit more complicated since AMD in their infinite wisdom released 2 different cards called the 6900 XT that have a relatively big (~5%, but consistently that much better) performance disparity between then, so if you can get one of the ones with the better core for about the same price (for the most part they are usually priced pretty similar), you should get the better card. 

[xg32]

I think the lowest ive seen a 3080 12gb for was 730usd

 

u can get a 3080ti or a 6950xt for 900usd, the 6950xt beats the 3080ti when it isn't 4k and it's not even close. 

 

 

[MisterC006]

34 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Not quite sure what you're asking. All 3080's perform basically the same.

 

The RX 6800 XT performs comparably to the 3080, trading blows from game to game (although anything with ray tracing on will be better on the 3080),and you can get them for under $700 right now. The 6900 XT beats the 3080 clean (again except in ray tracing) and you can get them for $7-800. 

I guess that explains the lack of reviews comparing cards head to head. I do a lot of game streaming using a steam link or the steam deck. Do you know of anything that would point to one versus the other?

[MisterC006]

28 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

In ray tracing sure, but in everything else a 6900 XT (which, for the most part, is the same price as a 3080) will perform a fair amount better, especially if you overclock the cards. Heck, my overclocked 6900 XT, pretty mediocre silicon quality I might add, matches a 3090 Ti in Time Spy Extreme graphics score. There are definitely reasons to go Nvidia over AMD, but game performance isn't really one of them. 

 

Realistically, the difference between any two 3080s is pretty minimal. Get one with a bigger cooler and you should be good to go. If you go 6900 XT, it gets a bit more complicated since AMD in their infinite wisdom released 2 different cards called the 6900 XT that have a relatively big (~5%, but consistently that much better) performance disparity between then, so if you can get one of the ones with the better core for about the same price (for the most part they are usually priced pretty similar), you should get the better card. 

Interesting!
What should I be looking for with the better core? Serial, clock speed, name, etc...?

[RONOTHAN##]

43 minutes ago, MisterC006 said:

Interesting!
What should I be looking for with the better core? Serial, clock speed, name, etc...?

Easiest way to find it is to look on TechPowerUp's website and check the core revision of the particular model. There are XTX cards and XTXH cards, the XTXH cards are the good ones. A couple off the top of my head are the Strix TOP, Red Devil Ultimate, OC Formula (personal favorite), Toxic, Merc 319 Limited, Gaming Z, and a couple others I'm sure I'm forgetting. A good rule of thumb is that if the card advertises a 2GHz base frequency or higher, it's the XTXH card, and if not it's the XTX, though there are probably exceptions to that rule. I wouldn't pay too much more for one of the XTXH cards, especially if you aren't gonna be overclocking, but it is faster enough that it does justify being searched out for, and they are binned quite a bit better than the XTX cards. 

 

For reference, the only difference between the XTXH 6900 XT and the 6950 XT is that the memory is clocked 100MHz higher on the 6950 XT and it has a 35W higher power limit out of the box. On an AMD card where completely disabling the power limit is pretty easy, if you're willing to overclock the 6900 XT manually there is almost no point in spending the extra $100-200 on a 6950 XT rather than a 6900 XT XTXH core (almost all the performance difference you see between them is because of that higher stock power limit).