Conclusion
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16GB GDDR6X is a custom video card from ASUS, with reference MSRP pricing for the RTX 4080 SUPER. It provides a sunny visual aesthetic, with robust cooling and manufacturing to deliver a great 4K gameplay experience and enthusiast tweaking and overclocking potential.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is $999 MSRP and clocked at the NVIDIA reference boost clocks. ASUS offers an “OC Edition” version of the TUF Gaming if you want a factory overclock. However, due to the cooling and power delivery, the actual GPU Boost while gaming out-of-the-box is very high, higher than a Founders Edition we found. With ASUS GPU Tweak III ASUS offers one-button OC Mode, and Silent Mode, and of course manual tweaking.
Performance
In Horizon Forbidden West at 4K the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER provided a playable experience without needing upscaling at 75FPS. However, flip on DLSS Quality upscaling and you can experience the game at 100FPS average at 4K. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is one of those games that you’ll want to utilize DLSS at 4K for the best experience, and it beats the Radeon RX 7900 XTX by 11% in that game and 21% with upscaling.
In Alan Wake 2 the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER provides a playable performance at 55FPS at 4K, but turning on DLSS boosts that up to 87FPS, performance is on par with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Assassin’s Creed Mirage is no problem for the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER above 100FPS at 4K. Starfield is demanding, but the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER handles it well above 60FPS at 4K, and with DLSS it is much faster at 90FPS and beats the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Returnal is also playable without needing upscaling at 4K at 87FPS.
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition is very playable at 4K over 100FPS on the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. Dying Light 2 is playable as well at 4K without needing upscaling at nearly 100FPS and beats the Radeon RX 7900 XTX in performance. Cyberpunk 2077 is another game that does need upscaling to be playable at 4K, but flip it on and the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER can run at 70FPS at 4K.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER also does very well in Ray Tracing performance, and at 4K you can enable DLSS upscaling for good performance. Otherwise, in some games, you may opt to utilize 1440p with the highest Ray Tracing without needing upscaling for the best experience.
Case in point, Alan Wake 2 at 1440p with High-Quality Upscaling (Path Tracing) was playable on the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER at 56FPS without needing upscaling, but it’s there if you want above 80FPS perf. Cyberpunk 2077 is another game where if you drop it to 1440p with Ultra Ray Tracing the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is very playable at 60FPS without needing upscaling, but turn on upscaling and it’s over 100FPS.
Dying Light 2 was playable at 4K with Ray Tracing when DLSS upscaling was utilized, at 86FPS. Chernobylite Enhanced Edition was also playable at 4K with Ray Tracing when DLSS upscaling was used at 70FPS. Returnal was playable at 4K with Ray Tracing without needing upscaling. In all cases, the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER was superior to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX using hardware Ray Tracing, it will allow a performance level beyond that of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX with Ray Tracing.
Overclocking, Power, and Temp
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the non-OC model, meaning it comes clocked at NVIDIA’s reference boost clock of 2550MHz. However, due to the improved cooling, power delivery, and target TDPs, the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER actually runs gaming at around 2745MHz, boosting it way up there past a Founders Edition without even overclocking it. This means out-of-the-box you are getting a clock-boosted performance level that surpasses a stock card.
With ASUS GPU Tweak III we are able to not only manage the clock boost frequency, and the memory boost frequency but also increase the GPU Voltage and mess with the fan speeds and curves. We found that the Power Target was allowed to increase by 10%. In the end, we had the GPU Boost clock set at 2750MHz for our highest stable overclock GPU Voltage at 100% and memory at 24Gbps compared to 23Gbps by default.
This highest stable overclock gave us a performance that was around 2970MHz fairly consistently while gaming over long periods of time, it could hold that performance level which is important. If you look back at our overclocking attempts on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition you will find that the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER achieved a higher overclock than the Founders Edition.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER also performed as it should in terms of board and GPU chip power. It was a little bit higher than the Founders Edition on power, due to the higher clock speeds and power delivery, and it increased in power as expected with the overclock and GPU Voltage increase. We also found the GPU temperatures to be acceptable, and the important part is that they did not increase to a wild degree when overclocked with Voltage applied. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER cooling does a good job.
Final Points
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16GB GDDR6X is a solid video card, and just because a video card is at the base MSRP doesn’t mean it has to be a ‘base’ video card. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER provides the robust build and engineering expected from ASUS, creating a custom-cooled video card that provides very high performance out of the box without any need for tweaking. However, if you want to, the potential is there with this video card to push it a little harder, and it can take it.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER provides a great 4K gameplay experience and dominates 1440p gaming. It supports DLSS Upscaling, DLSS 3 Frame Generation, and other DLSS features that should bring you an immersive gaming experience.
At the $999 MSRP (check current pricing in our pricing widget for updated pricing), the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is an appealing video card that provides a great out of box experience with a little extra than a stock video card.