RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop performance, specs & price

When comparing RTX 3080 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop GPUs, what are the performance differences and which offers better value for money?

Aaron Ritchie

Gaming Laptop

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If you want to know how RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop performance, specifications, and pricing compares then read below for everything you need to know to help you make the right purchase. If you’re short on time though, in summary, the RTX 4080 looks damn good – it’s one of the best high-end laptop GPU releases in years with a great performance uplift over the previous generation, and that’s even before you get to the benefits of DLSS 3.0 and improved Ray-Tracing. On a price/performance basis it’s well worth buying over the RTX 3080 (unless you can pick up one of these devices for about 40% cheaper).

We’ve listed a few options below for you, taken from our best RTX 4080 laptop guide.

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RTX 3080 laptop vs RTX 4080 laptop specs

Architecture

The Nvidia 30-series laptops were built on the 8nm Samsung process called Ampere, whereas the new Nvidia 40-series GPU chips are created using the 4nm TSMC process called Ada Lovelace (hence the AD prefix). The smaller process size on the 40-series GPUs means for greater power efficiency, and permits more transistors on the same amount of space, or alternatively, the same number of transistors on a smaller amount of space.

GPU & CUDA Cores

In Nvidia’s GPU-naming convention – bigger GPUs have a smaller number, which means within the same architecture these are the more powerful. However this doesn’t necessary translate between different architecture types/generations, as they have a different number of transistors on the same amount of space (as discussed above).

However, the AD103 GPU in the RTX 4080 is both larger and has more CUDA Cores than the GA104 in the RTX 3080: a percentage uplift of 21.4%. This is usually an indication of greater processing power.

Clock speed & TGP

TGP (Total Graphics Power) is a good way of comparing the actual power of what is ostensibly the same graphics card in different laptops: i.e. one RTX 4080 laptop GPU might not be as powerful as another with a higher TGP (measured in Watts) as it essentially has a lower power draw and therefore output.

The differing ranges between the different generation GPUs on different architecture however can’t be directly compared, as the RTX 4080 has increased power efficiency, meaning the same amount of Watts can be used to create a larger output. Still, the TGP range gives us a good idea of the possible range of performance between RTX 4080 laptops.

VRAM, Memory Bus & Memory Bandwidth

VRAM aka video random access memory is essentially the short term memory of the graphics card that acts as a frame buffer and as pixel storage. The memory bus and bandwidth enables the transfer of this information. More VRAM and a larger memory bus/bandwidth enables a smoother experience with better framerate and latency. It’s especially useful for larger resolutions as they have higher pixel counts to fill up many gigabytes.

This is pretty much the only area in which the RTX 3080 wins out against the RTX 4080: with the amount of VRAM, Memory Bus, and Bandwidth all being greater (assuming we’re talking about the 16GB RTX 3080 variant, and not the 8GB one). This could indicate reduced performance on higher resolutions.

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop price

RTX 4080 laptops vary dramatically in price, from around $2,399 – $3,299 USD.

It’s actually quite hard to get hold of a brand new RTX 3080 laptop these days to compare price like for like, as most have been replaced in online retailers with RTX 3070 Ti models, which offer comparable performance (though are outperformed by the RTX 3080 at 4K resolutions due to its lower 8GB VRAM, despite having the same Memory Bandwidth).

If you’re looking to pick up an RTX 3080 laptop you will be able to find renewed models for around the $2,000 mark, though bear in mind these will come with older CPU models as well as DDR4 RAM.

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop performance

Although we haven’t seen any direct benchmark comparisons of the RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop GPU, we’ve used the benchmarking data compiled on our best RTX 4080 laptop page compared to RTX 3080 Ti laptop performance, plus what we know about RTX 3080 vs RTX 3080 Ti performance, to extrapolated out the below results.

These are obviously highly approximated average results taken over a number of different games, and the individual performance per game will deviate (potentially quite considerably) between each title (expect lower difference in CPU-driven titles like Microsoft Flight Sim, and greater in GPU-intensive titles).

As you can see, the differences are quite substantial, though notably 4K resolution has a slightly smaller performance increase (though still quite large), which is likely due to the smaller VRAM and Memory Bandwidth in the RTX 3080.

• approximate average FPS increase @ 1080p: 34% (from RTX 3080 to RTX 4080)
• approximate average FPS increase @ 1440p: 37% (from RTX 3080 to RTX 4080)
• approximate average FPS increase @ 4K: 32% (from RTX 3080 to RTX 4080)

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop: which should you buy?

Given the very impressive uplift of the RTX 4080 laptop compared to the RTX 3080 mobile, we can certainly say it’s worth the additional expenditure – offering an average uplift of 32%-37% for a roughly proportionate increase in price (compared to what you can find RTX 3080 laptops on sale for currently).

Of course this also works inversely – if you fancy saving some cash then an RTX 3080 laptop might now present a more affordable option for a proportionate decrease in FPS per dollar saved. However, RTX 3080 laptops are a couple of years old now, so bear in mind they’re more likely to have DDR4 RAM support, be paired with older CPUs, and generally lack any upgrades the laptop brands have made to their models since 2021.

Final Word

We hope this RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop guide has proven illuminating and answered all the versions you were looking for. Please do have a look at our various other gaming laptop guides whilst you’re here in the dropdown menu above.

RTX 4080 laptop vs RTX 3080 laptop FAQs