GTX 1080 Ti Vs RTX 2080 Super: Which is Better

Planning on a high end build for streaming, video editing or even mining? In this post we will compare two of the most popular high end Nvidia Graphics Cards. The 1080 Ti Vs 2080 Super rivalry has been around for quite some time now, although in terms of price to performance ratio people are now drifting more towards the newly released RTX 3000 series. Nonetheless both the 2080 and 1080 are still running a part of the show for budget builders, especially the 1080 Ti.   

1080 Ti Vs RTX 2080 Super Specs

Additionally Multi monitor support is present in the 1080 Ti while it is unclear if the 2080 Super supports this feature. However the RTX 2080 Super is ahead of the 1080 Ti in many aspects. Faster multi rendering, Better lighting effects ,faster complex splatting and overall better peak effects. In terms of multi rendering the 2080S is ahead by 48%. It is the GPU following the 2060, 2070 versions of the ray-tracing GPUs and almost 10% faster than the original 2080.

The 1080 Ti on the other hand is crowned as the “Ultimate Geforce” and it is Nvidia’s latest flagship 4K VR ready Graphics unit. Better than the Titan X and in a position to challenge the 2080S for budget 4K gaming. Lets go ahead and measure up the 1080 Ti Vs 2080 performance for benchmarks and gaming.

1080 Ti Vs 2080 Super Gaming

Both the cards are capable of 4K gaming, and although they are equally power hungry both deliver great gaming quality with a little graphic settings modification. With the 2080S, the performance isn’t a significant leap compared to the 2080.

4K Peformance

The performance increment of the 2080S over the 2080 is only about 5%. At 4K Ultra settings with DLSS and ray tracing the RTX 2080S output around 40FPS for Metro Exodus, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Greedfall, Borderlands 3, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Cyberpunk 2077. Also for some games like Death Stranding, Apex legends, Far Cry New Dawn, COD: Black Ops 4 and Far Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2, the FPS output was between 60-70. While with certain games like Overwatch, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Need For Speed: Payback, Battlefield V and COD Modern Warfare the FPS count steadily remains at 75+.

As we mentioned earlier the 1080 Ti is better than the Titan X and it’s the closest Pascal architecture that measures to the performance of a Turing architecture. You can achieve an FPS count of closer to 60 with games like Battlefield 1, Apex legends, Far Cry New Dawn, Far Cry 5, GTA V and Doom with 4K enabled and Ultra settings. An output of 75+ FPS with games like Wolfenstein II, Destiny 2, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation and Rainbow Six Siege under the same settings.

You can see the numbers of the RTX 2080S are closely trailed by the 1080 Ti, which means that there isn’t a huge performance gap between the two cards. In fact it is almost insignificant for most average budget gamers.

1080p Performance

In terms of Full HD performance the GTX 1080 Ti is undoubtedly a jump from its predecessor the 980 Ti. Therefore the price to performance value is justified in comparison with the 980 Ti. Still it lags behind the 2080S which boasts the powerful Turing architecture. With the 1080 Ti you can output a solid 50-60 frames per second with games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Red dead redemption 2 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in ultra graphic settings. COD: Black ops cold war, Godfall, Far Cry New Dawn, Gears of war 5, Final Fantasy XV and Just Cause 4 outputs whooping 100+ frames in ultra settings.

The 2080S has an FPS count of 10-20 higher than the 1080 Ti with these games under the same settings. However in some games like Destiny 2 and Wolfenstein II the gap between the 2080 S and 1080 Ti is almost 30 frames.

2080 Super Vs 1080 Ti 1440p is basically the same story with the 1080 Ti lagging behind the 2080S. For most titles the frame rate difference fluctuates between 8 and 12 with ultra settings enabled. But the important thing to note is that the 1080 Ti isn’t far behind the 2080S, hence if you have one you shouldn’t worry at all.

Benchmark Performance

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PC testing. Includes two graphics tests. a combined stress test for the CPU and GPU and a physics test. It renders 1920 × 1080 resolution. The texture and complexity of this software is beyond other DirectX 11 benchmarks. The 2080S was almost 20% better than the 1080 Ti here. Interestingly however with the Fire Strike Ultra 4K Ultra HD both the cards were parallel in performance. This demanding benchmark is used to test the 4K performance and is four times Full HD rendering resolution.

In the SPECviewperf 12 – Maya workstation benchmark the 1080 Ti is ahead of the 2080S by almost 30%. 3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs. Rendered at 2560 × 1440 resolution and used to test the high end GPUs. Also used to test CPUs for criteria such as multi-threading. The 2080S outranks the 1080 Ti by 5.7% in this software. Considering the overall benchmark scores for 1080 Ti Vs RTX 2080, the RTX 2080 Super manages to be ahead of the competition by almost 8.5%.   

Summary

Both the graphics units are almost equal in rivalry but the RTX 2080S is a somewhat of a half step ahead of the 1080 Ti with its Turing architecture, and the AI-enhanced DLSS 2.0. The RTX 2080S offers 6x faster performance than the predecessors while the 1080 Ti offers 3x faster performance. The maximum operating temperature for the 2080S should be maintained below 80 degrees Celsius. However some users record temperatures around 83 and 89 degrees. The 1080 Ti has its recommended temperature marked at around 85 degrees Celsius. Again users have mentioned higher temperatures around 91 degrees.

A good PSU for the 1080 Ti would be a 600W and for the 2080S a 650W. Please make sure to check the proper power requirements for your build as the components are customized according to your choices. Use a power calculator to get the most accurate value. And bear a good cooling system in mind. Out of the two cards the 1080 Ti is the smaller built structure. Obviously if you are only focused on these two cards the outcome would be the RTX 2080S. But it will be a waste of money when now that the 3000 Series has surfaced with way better performance and lower price. If you are into mining, deep learning then the best option is to invest in a 3000 series rather than either of these cards.

1080 Ti vs 2070 Super

An additional yet useful piece of comparison for those debating on whether or not to invest in the Nvidia 2000 series.

We listed out the essential specs and you can see that the 1080 Ti dominates despite the 2070S ray-tracing and DLSS. The 1080 Ti takes precedence over the 2070S for better lighting effects, reflection handling, texture detail and complex splatting. However the 2070S has better multi rendering effects. Even in 3DMark benchmarking tests the 2070S emerges over the 1080 Ti in some while it is reversed in the other. For example in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark test the 1080 Ti ranks ahead of the 2070S by almost 13%, while the 2070S beats the 1080 Ti in the 3DMark Ice Storm by almost 28%. In these benchmark tests both the cards seemed to be almost parallel in performance. But the RTX DLSS and the Turing manages to outrank the Pascal 1080 Ti slightly.

Even in gaming performance the two cards were toe to toe with each other. Under ultra graphic settings and at Full HD resolution in games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Borderlands 3, Destiny 2, Far Cry New Dawn, Grand Theft Auto V and Metro Exodus both the 2070S and 1080 Ti output almost equal frame rates according to HwBench. Considering the price to performance ratios the GTX 1080 Ti is the clear choice for a budget gamer who can still have almost equivalent quality gaming as an RTX owner. Whichever card you choose, make the appropriate monitor choice too.