NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER vs NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation Comparison

The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and the RTX 5880 Ada Generation are both built on NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, but they target different corners of the market. The RTX 4080 SUPER is a consumer flagship, while the RTX 5880 Ada is a workstation card with a massive memory pool. Benchmark data shows a clear split: the 4080 SUPER dominates in legacy and standard DirectX workloads, while the 5880 Ada takes a commanding lead in a key compute test. Here is how the numbers break down.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in the head-to-head data is the Geekbench OpenCL score. Here, the RTX 5880 Ada Generation posts a score of 326,898, which is 33% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 219,065. This is the only benchmark in the comparison where the workstation card wins, but it is a decisive one, indicating a significant advantage in raw compute throughput. This result aligns with the 5880 Ada’s higher FP32 rating of 69.27 TFLOPS compared to the 4080 SUPER’s 52.22 TFLOPS.

Every other benchmark in the head-to-head set favors the GeForce card, often by large margins. In Passmark’s DirectX 12 test, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 134 versus just 70 for the RTX 5880 Ada, a massive 91.4% advantage. This is the largest delta in the entire comparison and suggests that the consumer card’s driver and hardware pipeline are far more optimized for modern DirectX 12 gaming workloads.

The DirectX 11 results follow a similar pattern, with the 4080 SUPER scoring 301 against 228 for the 5880 Ada, a 32% lead. The older DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 tests also go to the GeForce card, with 13.7% and 15.6% advantages respectively. In Passmark G3D, which is a general gaming and graphics benchmark, the 4080 SUPER scores 34,245 versus 25,096, giving it a 36.5% edge. Even in the Passmark GPU Compute test, which is often a strong suit for workstation cards, the 4080 SUPER wins with a 39.5% advantage (19,822 vs 14,208).

Perhaps the most surprising result is in the Passmark G2D test, which measures 2D graphics performance. The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 1,270, a 63.4% lead over the 5880 Ada’s 777. This is a significant gap for a workload that is not typically associated with high-end GPUs. Overall, the GeForce card wins 7 out of 8 benchmarks in the head-to-head comparison, cementing its status as the more broadly capable card in standard graphics tests.

Where Each One Wins

The data paints a clear picture of two distinct use cases. The RTX 4080 SUPER is the winner for any scenario that relies on legacy DirectX APIs or general-purpose graphics performance. Its wins in DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 tests, along with its dominance in G2D and G3D, make it the obvious choice for gaming, especially titles that use older API paths. The 91.4% lead in DirectX 12 is particularly notable, as it suggests that the 4080 SUPER is better equipped to handle the latest game engines and their advanced rendering features.

The RTX 5880 Ada Generation, on the other hand, is the clear winner in OpenCL compute. Its 33% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is a strong indicator of its suitability for professional applications that leverage GPGPU compute, such as scientific simulation, machine learning inference, or rendering tasks that use OpenCL as their backend. The 5880 Ada’s 48 GB of memory, while not directly benchmarked here, is a massive advantage for workloads that require large datasets to be resident on the GPU. The 4080 SUPER’s 16 GB is a fraction of that capacity.

For pure gaming or consumer workloads, the 4080 SUPER is the superior product based on this benchmark suite. Its wins in DirectX and the overall G3D score are decisive. For a professional user whose primary bottleneck is compute throughput and memory capacity, the 5880 Ada’s single but significant win in OpenCL makes it a compelling option, despite its losses elsewhere. The Passmark GPU Compute results complicate this picture, however, as the 4080 SUPER wins that test by 39.5%, suggesting that not all compute workloads behave the same.

Architecture Differences

Both GPUs are built on the same 5 nm process at TSMC and share the Ada Lovelace architecture, but they are very different chips. The RTX 4080 SUPER uses the AD103 chip, which contains 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The RTX 5880 Ada uses the larger AD102 chip, which packs 76,300 million transistors onto a 609 mm² die. This makes the 5880 Ada a substantially more complex piece of silicon, with a transistor density of 125.3M / mm² compared to 121.1M / mm² for the 4080 SUPER.

The 5880 Ada’s larger chip translates into more execution resources. It has 14,080 shading units, 440 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, compared to 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs on the 4080 SUPER. The ray tracing and tensor core counts follow suit, with the 5880 Ada featuring 110 RT cores and 440 tensor cores versus 80 and 320 on the GeForce card. This hardware advantage explains the 5880 Ada’s higher theoretical peak performance in FP32 and FP16, both rated at 69.27 TFLOPS.

Memory configurations are also starkly different. The RTX 4080 SUPER uses 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, delivering 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 5880 Ada uses 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus, providing 864.0 GB/s of bandwidth. While the 5880 Ada has more total bandwidth, its memory clock is lower at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) versus 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) on the 4080 SUPER. Clock speeds themselves are notably different, with the 4080 SUPER boosting to 2550 MHz and the 5880 Ada boosting to 2460 MHz. The base clocks are even further apart, with the 4080 SUPER at 2295 MHz versus a very low 975 MHz on the 5880 Ada.

Physical design also diverges. The 4080 SUPER is a triple-slot card, 310 mm long, with a 320 W TDP and a 700 W suggested PSU. The 5880 Ada is a dual-slot card, 267 mm long, with a 285 W TDP and a 600 W suggested PSU. Both use a single 16-pin power connector and PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. Display outputs differ, with the 4080 SUPER having 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, while the 5880 Ada offers 4x DisplayPort 1.4a. The 4080 SUPER is marked as end-of-life, while the 5880 Ada is listed as active in production.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the benchmark data, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the better card for general graphics and gaming performance. It wins 7 of 8 head-to-head benchmarks, including decisive victories in DirectX 11 (32% lead), DirectX 12 (91.4% lead), and G3D (36.5% lead). Its 63.4% advantage in G2D also makes it a more responsive card for desktop and 2D applications. Users focused on gaming, especially with modern DirectX 12 titles, should choose the RTX 4080 SUPER without hesitation.

The NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation is the pick for compute-intensive professional workloads that can leverage its OpenCL performance. Its 33% lead in Geekbench OpenCL is the only benchmark win it has, but that is a critical one for many workstation applications. Its 48 GB of memory is also a substantial feature, even if its bandwidth advantage over the 4080 SUPER is modest (864.0 GB/s vs 736.3 GB/s). The data suggests the 5880 Ada is a specialist tool, not a generalist. Its lower scores in DirectX and G2D mean it is not suited for gaming or standard graphics tasks.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher benchmark score in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation wins with a score of 326,898, which is 33% higher than the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER’s 219,065.

Q: How large is the DirectX 12 performance gap between the two cards?

A: The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER scores 134 in the Passmark DirectX 12 test, compared to 70 for the RTX 5880 Ada, giving the GeForce card a 91.4% advantage.

Q: What are the memory capacities of each card?

A: The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory, while the RTX 5880 Ada Generation has 48 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: Which card has more shading units and RT cores?

A: The RTX 5880 Ada Generation has more resources, with 14,080 shading units and 110 RT cores, versus 10,240 shading units and 80 RT cores on the RTX 4080 SUPER.

Q: Which GPU is larger in terms of die size and transistor count?

A: The RTX 5880 Ada uses a 609 mm² die with 76,300 million transistors, while the RTX 4080 SUPER has a 379 mm² die with 45,900 million transistors.

Q: How do the cards compare in the Passmark GPU Compute test?

A: The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER wins the compute test with a score of 19,822, a 39.5% lead over the RTX 5880 Ada’s 14,208.