NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti vs NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded benchmark data splits this comparison into two very different profiles. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti wins 8 of the 9 head-to-head tests, dominating in every PassMark category and in Geekbench OpenCL. Its largest advantages come in compute-oriented workloads, with a 122.2% lead in PassMark GPU Compute and a 122.1% lead in PassMark DirectX 11. The GTX 1080 Ti also wins by 107% in DirectX 10, 100.9% in DirectX 9, and 93.5% in PassMark G3D. These are not marginal differences; the older desktop card is roughly twice as fast in several legacy and compute scenarios.

The RTX A2000 Mobile takes exactly one victory, but it is a notable one: Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 53,146 versus 40,511 for the GTX 1080 Ti, a 23.8% margin. This suggests the mobile Ampere part has a particular strength in modern low-level graphics APIs, likely tied to its newer architecture and feature set. In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 1080 Ti still wins, but by a smaller 20.2% margin (67,929 versus 56,518), indicating the gap narrows in general-purpose compute when using a cross-platform API.

The use-case split is clear. For traditional rasterization workloads, especially those using DirectX 9 through 12, the GTX 1080 Ti is the stronger choice by a wide margin. For Vulkan-based applications, the RTX A2000 Mobile pulls ahead, which could matter for specific modern game engines or compute frameworks that leverage Vulkan's lower overhead. However, the overall average benchmark score favors the GTX 1080 Ti at 15,548 versus 13,821 for the RTX A2000 Mobile, and the former sits at the 58th percentile of all GPUs compared to the 55th for the latter.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different eras and design philosophies. The GTX 1080 Ti uses the GP102 chip on TSMC's 16 nm process, packing 11,800 million transistors into a 471 mm² die. The RTX A2000 Mobile uses the GA107 chip on Samsung's 8 nm process, with 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. The transistor density tells the story: 25.1M per mm² for the older Pascal part versus 43.5M per mm² for the newer Ampere part. The RTX A2000 Mobile is a much denser design, but the GTX 1080 Ti has more total silicon area to work with.

The GTX 1080 Ti is built on the Pascal architecture, while the RTX A2000 Mobile uses Ampere. This generation gap brings significant feature differences. The RTX A2000 Mobile includes 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, which the GTX 1080 Ti lacks entirely. This enables hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS-capable tensor operations on the mobile part, features absent from the Pascal design. The API support reflects this: the RTX A2000 Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 1080 Ti tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1).

The memory subsystems also differ fundamentally. The GTX 1080 Ti uses 11 GB of GDDR5X on a 352-bit bus, yielding 484.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX A2000 Mobile uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, with 192.0 GB/s. This is a massive bandwidth advantage for the desktop card, which helps explain its dominance in memory-intensive benchmarks. The GTX 1080 Ti also has more execution resources: 3,584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 88 ROPs, versus 2,560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 48 ROPs on the RTX A2000 Mobile.

The mobile part compensates with a much higher FP16 rate. The RTX A2000 Mobile achieves 8.637 TFLOPS in FP16 with a 1:1 ratio to FP32, while the GTX 1080 Ti manages only 177.2 GFLOPS in FP16 at a 1:64 ratio. This makes the Ampere part far more capable for workloads that can use reduced precision. The RTX A2000 Mobile also has a much lower TDP at 95 W versus 250 W for the GTX 1080 Ti, and it is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with no power connectors, designed for portable devices.

FAQ

Q: Which card has more raw compute power in FP32?

A: The GTX 1080 Ti delivers 11.34 TFLOPS in FP32, compared to 8.637 TFLOPS for the RTX A2000 Mobile. The Pascal card holds a roughly 31% advantage in single-precision compute.

Q: Does the RTX A2000 Mobile support ray tracing?

A: Yes, it includes 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, which are part of the Ampere architecture. The GTX 1080 Ti has no ray tracing or tensor cores, as it predates those features in NVIDIA's lineup.

Q: Which card has higher memory bandwidth?

A: The GTX 1080 Ti has a bandwidth of 484.4 GB/s from 11 GB of GDDR5X on a 352-bit bus. The RTX A2000 Mobile has 192.0 GB/s from 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus. The desktop card has 2.5 times the bandwidth.

Q: Why does the RTX A2000 Mobile win in Vulkan despite losing elsewhere?

A: In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX A2000 Mobile scores 53,146 versus 40,511 for the GTX 1080 Ti, a 23.8% advantage. This likely reflects the newer architecture's better support for low-level, modern graphics APIs, including its DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set and dedicated ray tracing hardware.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each card?

A: The GTX 1080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 15,548, placing it at the 58th percentile of all GPUs. The RTX A2000 Mobile averages 13,821, at the 55th percentile. Despite the RTX A2000 Mobile's Vulkan win, its overall average is about 11% lower.

Q: Which card has better legacy DirectX performance?

A: The GTX 1080 Ti wins every DirectX test by a wide margin. It leads by 107% in DirectX 10, 122.1% in DirectX 11, 40.4% in DirectX 12, and 100.9% in DirectX 9. The Pascal architecture appears far stronger for older rasterization APIs.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every core specification. The GTX 1080 Ti uses the GP102 chip with 11,800 million transistors on a 471 mm² die, while the RTX A2000 Mobile uses GA107 with 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. The process node is 16 nm for the desktop part and 8 nm for the mobile part, with the foundry being TSMC versus Samsung respectively.

Clock speeds differ as well. The GTX 1080 Ti has a base clock of 1481 MHz and a boost of 1582 MHz, with memory running at 1376 MHz (11 Gbps effective). The RTX A2000 Mobile has a lower base clock of 1215 MHz but a higher boost of 1687 MHz, with memory at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The mobile part boosts higher, but the desktop part has more execution units to work with.

Memory capacities and types are very different: 11 GB of GDDR5X versus 4 GB of GDDR6, 352-bit versus 128-bit bus, and 484.4 GB/s versus 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 1080 Ti has 3,584 shading units, 224 TMUs, and 88 ROPs, while the RTX A2000 Mobile has 2,560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The RTX A2000 Mobile adds 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores, which the GTX 1080 Ti does not have.

Pixel and texture rates follow the same pattern: 139.2 GPixel/s and 354.4 GTexel/s for the GTX 1080 Ti, versus 80.98 GPixel/s and 135.0 GTexel/s for the RTX A2000 Mobile. FP32 is 11.34 TFLOPS versus 8.637 TFLOPS, but FP16 flips dramatically: 177.2 GFLOPS (1:64) versus 8.637 TFLOPS (1:1). TDP is 250 W versus 95 W, with the GTX 1080 Ti being dual-slot with 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin connectors, while the RTX A2000 Mobile is an IGP with no connectors. The bus interface is PCIe 3.0 x16 for the older card and PCIe 4.0 x16 for the newer one. Display outputs are 1x HDMI 2.0 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a for the GTX 1080 Ti, versus portable device dependent for the RTX A2000 Mobile.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The GTX 1080 Ti's biggest wins come in compute and legacy graphics. In PassMark GPU Compute, it scores 9,632 versus 4,334, a 122.2% advantage. PassMark DirectX 11 shows a 122.1% lead (151 versus 68). DirectX 10 shows a 107% edge (118 versus 57). DirectX 9 shows a 100.9% lead (231 versus 115). These results indicate the Pascal architecture has a massive advantage in older APIs and general compute tasks, likely due to its higher shading unit count and much larger memory bandwidth.

The PassMark G3D score is also lopsided: 18,600 versus 9,611, a 93.5% advantage. PassMark G2D shows a 91.2% lead (939 versus 491). Even DirectX 12, where the RTX A2000 Mobile's newer architecture might be expected to help, shows a 40.4% advantage for the GTX 1080 Ti (66 versus 47). These numbers suggest that the desktop card's raw resources, both in terms of compute units and memory bandwidth, overwhelm the mobile part's architectural advantages in most scenarios.

Geekbench OpenCL shows a narrower gap: 67,929 versus 56,518, a 20.2% lead for the GTX 1080 Ti. This is the closest result among the GTX 1080 Ti's wins, indicating that the RTX A2000 Mobile's modern architecture partially compensates for its lower resource counts in cross-platform compute. The single RTX A2000 Mobile win comes in Geekbench Vulkan, where it scores 53,146 versus 40,511, a 23.8% margin. This is a significant victory for the mobile part and suggests that Vulkan is the one API where the Ampere architecture's newer design and features like ray tracing provide a tangible benefit.

The Verdict

The data points to a clear split based on workload and form factor. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the stronger performer in the vast majority of benchmarks, winning 8 of 9 head-to-head tests. Its advantages range from 20.2% in OpenCL to 122.2% in GPU compute, and it leads by over 90% in both PassMark G3D and G2D. The 11 GB of GDDR5X memory and 484.4 GB/s bandwidth give it a decisive edge in memory-intensive tasks, while its 3,584 shading units provide ample compute throughput for traditional graphics workloads.

The RTX A2000 Mobile is not without merit. Its Vulkan win by 23.8% shows that for applications built around modern low-level APIs, the Ampere architecture with its 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores can outperform the older Pascal design. Its FP16 performance at 8.637 TFLOPS with a 1:1 ratio is a major advantage for mixed-precision workloads, where the GTX 1080 Ti's 1:64 ratio is a severe limitation. The mobile part also operates at 95 W versus 250 W, making it suitable for portable devices where power consumption and heat are critical constraints.

For desktop users prioritizing raw performance in DirectX-based games and compute tasks, the GTX 1080 Ti is the clear choice based on benchmark results. For mobile users who need Vulkan support, ray tracing capabilities, and efficient FP16 compute, the RTX A2000 Mobile offers specific advantages despite its lower overall scores. The average benchmark scores of 15,548 versus 13,821, and percentiles of 58th versus 55th, confirm that the GTX 1080 Ti is the stronger all-around performer, but the RTX A2000 Mobile's unique features make it the better fit for certain modern workloads, particularly those leveraging Vulkan or mixed-precision arithmetic.