AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT have similar specs and performance, but are priced in completely different segments. The former is $1,199 and the latter is $899, but you can comfortably game in 4K with ray tracing enabled on both cards. This guide will show you how to choose between AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080.

• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition

  NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 is the company’s mid-range GPU for the 40 series of graphics cards. It’s huge, packed with processing cores, and offers impressive ray tracing performance.

• Source: AMD

  AMD Radeon RX 7900XT

  The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is AMD’s answer to the RTX 4080 with some tweaked specs to offer even more savings for gamers looking for a solid graphics card for 4K gaming.

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 is the company’s second flagship, sitting below the unobtainable $1,599 RTX 4090. It’s got enough power to handle ray tracing gameplay at 1440p and 4K and goes head-to-head with AMD’s new RX 7900 series. Comparing it to the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, there’s a clear winner depending on how much you value money.

If money is not a concern, the RTX 4080 is the most powerful GPU. If you want more for your money, the Radeon RX 7900 XT is simply the best value. Both GPUs are overpriced compared to what we used to pay for these flagship models, but NVIDIA’s price is over the top and AMD is undercutting the competition considerably.

RX 7900 XT vs RTX 4080: price and availability

Since the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT was released in December 2022, availability can be unpredictable. With an introductory price of just $899, the GPU severely undercuts the competition, which may further impact availability. NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 has been around for a few months now and can be found at various retailers for $1,199.

The two GPUs are similar in performance, though the RTX 4080 excels in almost every area. If you can’t afford $999 for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, the Radeon RX 7900 XT offers better value than the RTX 4080 when you look at performance per dollar.

Architecture

Looking at the specs, it’s not clear which is the best card on paper. AMD’s card has more RAM with higher bandwidth, but the RTX 4080 has almost twice as many graphics computing cores. The same goes for the architecture, AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is based on RDNA 3 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 uses Ada Lovelace.

Both support ray tracing to some degree, though NVIDIA’s implementation has had more time to mature and make good use of AI-assisted calculations. Along with DLSS, you can enjoy smoother gameplay with all these heavy features enabled. AMD has similar technologies to NVIDIA, but the company is catching up and this is shown in the benchmark results below. Its ray tracing capabilities just don’t cut it when compared to NVIDIA.

Also, the RTX 4080 is capable of running at faster speeds, while the Radeon RX 7900 XT will consume less power at default settings. NVIDIA’s drivers are generally robust at launch, while AMD’s may take longer, but you may end up vastly improving performance over the life of the card. These two cards will be trading blows throughout the day, so let’s take a look at their actual in-game performance.

Performance

When it comes to performance, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 can use those extra cores to really power through heavy games. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT has its own 1440p and 2160p (4K) resolutions, but it’s no match for the considerably more expensive competition.

You’ll pay almost 30% more for the RTX 4080 than the RX 7900, but the performance boost is inconsistent, with some games seeing a minimal boost (Far Cry 6) and others seeing considerable jumps, especially at 4K. Ray tracing, unsurprisingly, is a different story. NVIDIA GPUs handle it better across the board.

For value, the RX 7900 XT is the best deal here, but then we recommend spending an extra $100 on the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which is capable of trading blows with the RTX 4080 and beating it in more titles. That GPU is the better value proposition, but the RX 7900 XT is still a good GPU. It’s hard to recommend the RTX 4080 at its current price.

Which GPU is better?

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a solid GPU and the best graphics card for ray tracing performance, but its price is too high. Given that AMD can launch the Radeon RX 7900 series starting at $899, it’s clear that NVIDIA can (and likely will) drop the price of the RTX 4080 to match the RX 7900 XTX at the very least. AMD scored a few points with its price, undercutting the competition and offering better value. If this is a high priority, the RX 7900 XT is the best choice.

But if you can spend just $100 more, the RX 7900 XTX activates additional dies and increases bandwidth and RAM capacity, resulting in better performance. It’s hard to recommend the RTX 4080 unless it’s matching the price of the RX 7900 XTX, but it’s also trying to steer people to the RX 7900 XT with its better brother costing $100 more.