AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs GeForce RTX 4080 – specs and performance comparison

Find out who wins in a head to head of two top end GPUs: the RX 7900 XTX vs RTX 4080.

In November 2022, NVIDIA released the RTX 4080. Hot on their heels is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and the RX 7900 XTX, both released in December. Now that we’ve had some time to spend with both cards – here’s our comprehensive comparison.

The RTX 4080’s release has been met with much controversy – the price being the centre of it all. However, the release of AMD’s new graphics cards coincided with a drop in price for the 4080. This definitely turns up the heat as we ask which graphics card is best?

The consumer friendly RX 7000 pricing structure might be the determining factor between the RX 7900 XTX and the RTX 4080, so we’ll be keeping an eye on stock levels over the next few weeks to see how this story pans out.

We’ve already had a look at the RX 7900 XTX vs RX 7900 XT, and with the RTX 4070 Ti having recently released, we’ve also compared it against the RTX 4080, so we’ve got plenty of comparisons to help you choose your next graphics card.

Gamers can now get their hands on AMD’s new RDNA 3 technology, which will be a huge improvement on RDNA 2. The differing GPU architecture will be another important factor as we consider AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080.

If after this comparison you’re still not convinced by either of these graphics cards – you might be interested in the RTX 4070 Ti which we’ve compared with its predecessor,

RX 7900 XTX vs RTX 4080 specifications

In every round of the battle between Team Blue and Team Red, Nvidia have always edged Radeon in terms of specs and performance – though this year the gap between the two has been significantly shortened.

The RTX 4080 and RX 7900 XTX specs are listed below:

Specs	RX 7900 XTX	RTX 4080
Base Frequency	1900MHz	2210MHz
Max Frequency	2500MHz	2510MHz
VRAM	24GB	24GB
Memory Speed	20 Gbps	22.4 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	960 GB/s	717 GB/s
Cache	96MB	64MB

Not listed are a few key specifications – namely the CUDA cores the RTX 4080 has. Due to the differing architectures, it’s not viable to compare Lovelace CUDA cores with RDNA 3 stream processors.

As with the comparisons between CUDA cores and stream processors, comparing GPUs is more of an apples-and-oranges contest, instead of the straightforward numbers game that we want it to be.

Read More: Best CPU for RX 7900 XTX & 7900 XT

The RTX 4080’s Lovelace architecture appears at points to be giving it the lead, however, an unsung hero in the comparison is the 384-bit bus, which maximizes the potential of the 24GB GDDR6X memory through a bandwidth of 960 GB/s.

Price

The RX 7900 XTX outperforms the RTX 4080 in several ways, and perhaps the most important is through the much more budget-friendly price.

Read Now: RTX 4070 Ti vs 3080

With both cards released in 2022 using the next generation of architecture, the RX 7900 XTX starting price sits over $200 dollars below the RTX 4080.

That being said, GPU prices have always been known to fluctuate, so if your heart is set on the RTX 4080 but can’t afford it just now, we advise keeping an eye on retailers like Amazon and Best Buy in case there are any price drops.

Price Check:

1. ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition Gaming Graphics Card via Newegg
2. XFX Speedster MERC310 AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Graphics Card via Amazon

Read Now: RTX 4080 price – is it worth it?

Performance

The performance of both the RX 7900 XTX and RTX 4080 is vital in making this comparison.

The above graphic published by AMD Radeon signifies what the RX 7900 XTX is going to perform like at max settings – and it’s promising.

With up to 67% increased performance over the top RDNA 2 GPU, and 18% performance advantage over the RX 7900 XT, there’s no question that the RX 7900 XTX is the best RDNA 3 card to be released this year.

Though, how does it compare to the RTX 4080?

WePC’s Graphics Card benchmarker, Seb, has put the RTX 4080 on the bench, and has suggested that the RTX 3090 actually outperforms the RTX 4080 – which is honestly a disappointing turn of events for Nvidia considering the huge asking price of their latest GPU.

With this in mind, the performance growth between RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 is a significant enough change to once again give AMD the upper-hand over Nvidia.

Architecture

Comparing Lovelace against RDNA 3 is the comparison on everyone’s mind right now.

The two GPU architectures are wildly different and their values are prominent in differing areas.

However, before we begin, the similarities in chip manufacturing are important to note. While the RDNA 2 cards used TSMC’s 7nm process – RDNA 3 GPUs are designed with the 5nm process, which just so happens to be the same procedure used by Nvidia in their RTX 40-series. If you’re interested in a more in-depth comparison between RDNA 2 vs RDNA 3, WePC have got you covered.

Read More: Best GPU for Hogwarts Legacy – our top picks

Having smaller chipsets that function the same, if not better, is hugely beneficial in the construction of processors and micro-computers as it essentially allows there to be more chips in each GPU,

Furthermore, the inclusion of Infinity Cache is also a very welcome improvement and certainly brings the two architectures to a much closer level.

Lovelace architecture saw songs of praise upon its release – with the 9,728 CUDA cores in the RTX 4080 beating the performance in the RTX 3080 and levelling the distance between the RTX 3090 Ti.

RX 7900 XTX vs RTX 4080 – final word

If we’re weighing up the RX 7900 XTX vs RTX 4080, the honest answer would be to lean in the favour of the graphics card that offers the best performance for the price.

That card would be the RX 7900 XTX, which whilst costing $200 less than the RTX 4080, still manages to match it in terms of performance.

Even better than that, the RX 7900 XT costs only $100 less than the XTX, meaning that you can buy a card worthy of taking on the RTX 4080 for $300 less.

Ultimately, the price of the RX 7900 XTX is its biggest asset – and you can find out where to buy it here.

RX 7900 XTX vs RTX 4080 FAQs

Is the RTX 4080 overpriced?

The RTX 4080 is overpriced, especially for Nvidia’s standards. This might be why we’ve seen the price dropping ahead of RX 7000-series release.

Is the RX 7900 XTX good for gaming?

The RX 7900 XTX is designed with gaming in mind – and will be one of the best cards for 4K gaming above 60FPS.

How much better is the RX 7900 XTX than the XT?

Despite the singular letter differentiating the two, the XTX boasts a 10% higher performance than its slightly cheaper counterpart.

Can RDNA 3 do ray tracing?

Yes, compared to RDNA 2 it can perform 1.8x times better.