It points to the GPU having some beefy overclocking chops, but that’s unlikely to persuade potential RTX 4080 buyers to take the plunge, mind you – instead, we reckon a price drop might help to do the trick there.

The RTX 4080 card used here is just a plain Galax board aimed at consumers, so to see it reach only 200MHz shy of the seriously customized HOF version of the 4090 is actually very impressive. The RTX 4090 has previously attained a boost speed of 3.825GHz, but remember this was the ‘HOF’ (Hall Of Fame) edition of the Galax 4090, a board which is specially designed to do well with overclocking (an expensive limited edition proposition for expert overclockers, basically). But it’s still interesting to see how far these Lovelace GPUs can be pushed when overclocking, with plenty of headroom available. Given that, you may not want to hear about the RTX 4080 hitting record speeds, or care much at all about it, and we get where you’re coming from. The reality is that with the RTX 4080’s price point, in some cases custom third-party boards cost nearly as much as the RTX 4090 – which is a considerably faster graphics card (and a ridiculous situation, for sure). The RTX 4080 has launched to flak from reviewers and gamers alike, due to its shaky overall value proposition – Nvidia has certainly pushed the price tag as hard as it can with this GPU.

Analysis: A seriously impressive feat, but it’s unlikely to move consumers

Nvidia overclock gpu