Palit GeForce RTX 3090 vs RTX 2080Ti Review – Ampere vs Turing Flagship Showdown

Wccftech regularly covers some of the biggest AIB GPU manufacturers such as MSI, GALAX, and ZOTAC to name a few. However, there is one brand that we have never covered before in a review - the Taiwan-based Palit Microsystems.

Founded back in 1988, Palit has its factories in mainland China, the main office in Taiwan's capital (Taipei), as well as branches in Hong Kong and Germany. Palit, which also owns the Gainward brand since 2005, is solely focused on NVIDIA GeForce GPUs and managed to garner a name for itself across Europe because its graphics cards tend to be some of the least expensive compared to other AIB manufacturers while still being reliable.

This review is thus focused strictly on a 'manufacturer showdown' featuring Ampere's flagship, the Palit GeForce RTX 3090 GameRock OC, and Turing's flagship, the Palit RTX 2080Ti Dual OC; as you probably know already, the GeForce RTX Titan was only ever produced by NVIDIA. Let's look at the respective specifications, to begin with.

SPECIFICATIONS	Palit RTX 3090 GameRock OC	Palit RTX 2080Ti Dual OC
Memory Amount	24GB	11GB
Memory Interface	384bit	352bit
DRAM Type	GDDR6X	GDDR6
Graphics Clock	1395 MHz	1350 MHz
Boost Clock	1740 MHz	1575 MHz
Memory Clock	19.5 Gbps	14 Gbps
CUDA Cores	10496	4352
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	936	616
Microsoft DirectX	Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate	Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate
OpenGL	4.6	4.5
Bus Support	PCI-E 4.0	PCI-E 3.0 x 16
HDMI	HDMI 2.1	HDMI 2.0b
DisplayPort	DP1.4a x 3	DP1.4a x 3
Maximum Digital Resolution	7680x4320	7680x4320
Height	2.7 slot	2.5 Slot
Board Size	304 x 136 x 60 mm	292 x 112 x 58 mm
Graphics Card Power	370W	250 W/ 285W with USB
Recommended System Power	850W	650W
Supplementary Power Connectors	8-pin X3	8-pin X2
Accessory	Manual, Power Cable, ARGB SYNC cable	Manual, Power Cable

I won't dwell over the innovations brought by NVIDIA with the Ampere architecture as we've been over them time and again on Wccftech. You can read our architectural deep-dive report here.

The aesthetic style chosen by Palit for the RTX 3090, dubbed 'Dazzling Angel' by the manufacturer, is very unique thanks to its diamond-like appearance. Beyond that, Palit offers the following features.

Triple-A Die Casting Plate Kit

Two die casting molded “Aluminum Alloy Armor” plates fully cover the circuit board and directly attach to all the hot spots on PCB. They provide:

• Strong-as-armor protection

• Optimized heat dissipation

Embossed Heatsink

The fin is molded with embossments to enlarge air contact area for most efficient heat dissipation.

ARBG SYNC

ARGB SYNC allows you to sync the lighting with all your other ARGB- supported PC devices and enjoy the lighting symphony!

Angel ARGB
The addressable RGB allows gamers to customize each LED color. The crystalline cuts on GameRock cooler bring you the splendid angel lighting. You can personalized the lighting modes with Palit ThunderMaster software.

TurboFan 3.0: 2-Ball Bearing

TurboFan upgrades to 3.0 version with 2-ball bearing to reinforce fan stability. Features:
• IP5X dust resistant technology
• Lower fan vibration
• Prolonged fan life expectancy

0-dB TECH

Keep Silent while you are experiencing the multimedia application and general workload. The operating fans only occurs while working on heavier loading.

DrMOS

DrMOS, originally only available for high-end server CPUs, is now available in all its glory in the next generation of Palit graphics cards. DrMOS offers high current circuits, low noise operation, and effective reduction of heat generating.

THE ALL NEW THUNDERMASTER

Palit’s new ThunderMaster has had a thorough upgrade. It has more user-friendly interface as well as more personalized settings. ThunderMaster lets you control your overclock settings, fan speeds to LED effects. You can also monitor GPU status with ThunderMaster utility.

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Given the nature of this review as a 'flagship showdown' among Palit graphics cards, all of the games were tested running at 4K resolution with maximum settings, high-resolution textures, and ray tracing effects where available. After all, both cards were extremely expensive (they still are, even the 2080Ti unless you find a good deal for a used one) when they came out, not to mention perfectly equipped with the hardware to handle everything a modern game can possibly throw at them.

Truth to be told, as far as uncompromised PC gaming goes, I was never fully satisfied with the Palit RTX 2080Ti's performance after factoring in its high price. Will the Palit RTX 3090 be able to fix that, given NVIDIA's claim of Ampere as the biggest architectural leap in performance to date? Let's find out in our mix of game tests.

Test bench

• MSI MEG Z390 ACE
• Intel Core i9 [email protected]
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB [email protected]
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Wolfenstein: Youngblood launched last year. Made by MachineGames in collaboration with Arkane Studios, it runs on the id Tech 6 engine rather than DOOM Eternal's latest id Tech 7 version. However, unlike DOOM Eternal (at least for the time being), Wolfenstein: Youngblood features Vulkan-based ray traced reflections as well as DLSS 2.0 support, which allows it to run at incredibly high frame rates.

Here, the 3090 provides a healthy 52.2% increase in average FPS, as well as a 46.4% improvement in the one percentile measurement.

Whenever 4A Games releases a new title, it is almost guaranteed to set a new bar for visuals as well as a useful testbed for benchmarking. Metro Exodus, which debuted in March 2019, definitely did not disappoint in that regard and is still one of the most technologically advanced games, even if sadly it hasn't been updated with the latest DLSS version (2.0).

Compared to Wolfenstein: Youngblood, we registered an even bigger improvement (59.3%) in Metro Exodus when it comes to average FPS going from the Palit GeForce RTX 2080Ti to the Palit GeForce RTX 3090. But the true magic happens with the one percentile, which goes up by 73.2% and lifts the most intensive scenes from below 30FPS to over 45 so that gameplay stays smooth (particularly if you've got a G-Sync display) at all times.

Far Cry New Dawn is the latest franchise installment. Running on an updated version of the Dunia engine, Far Cry New Dawn was already quite smooth on the RTX 2080Ti, but the RTX 3090 goes much further, improving the average FPS by 40.6% and the 1% percentile frame rate by 44.5%.

Batman Arkham Knight remains the last game developed by Rocksteady and that will hold true until 2022 when their Suicide Squad title is due for release.

Powered by Unreal Engine 3, it is one of the last big games released with Epic's older engine. As mentioned above, we cranked everything up to the max, GameWorks and PhysX effects included.

The results are frankly staggering here, with the biggest performance boost we've seen to date. Batman Arkham Knight's benchmark registered an average FPS of almost 150 with the Palit RTX 3090, 98.5% improved compared to the RTX 2080Ti. But even this pales in comparison to what we've registered with the 1% percentile, which is 193% higher with the RTX 3090. For some reason, this game sings on Ampere architecture.

Running on the latest version of the Snowdrop engine made by Ubisoft Massive, Tom Clancy's The Division 2 launched in March 2019. Even though this sequel is technically AMD-optimized on PC (unlike the original game), The Division 2 is surprisingly in the upper end of our Turing-to-Ampere improvement spectrum. Average FPS goes up to 76.7, a 67.1% increase over the RTX 2080Ti, while the 1% percentile frame rate increased by 56.7%.

While over three years old now, Assassin's Creed Origins (running on the AnvilNext 2.0 engine) remains a stunning game to this date, not to mention the first installment in the franchise to feature proper RPG elements. Here, though, the built-in benchmark provides a performance increase that's relatively modest by comparison: 43.3% higher average FPS, 43.1% higher 1% percentile frame rate.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is also built on the AnvilNext 2.0 engine, albeit on a more recent version of it having been released a bit over a year ago. Ubisoft Paris also added Vulkan support earlier this year, which provided improved performance across the board as noted by Keith in his analysis.

Breakpoint running on Vulkan enjoys a greater boost compared to Assassin's Creed Origins, with 63.5% higher average FPS and 59.9% higher 1% percentile frame rate.

Gearbox's Borderlands 3 is the only Unreal Engine 4 game tested for this review, which makes it interesting in itself as Unreal Engine 4 is extremely common nowadays.

It's also another game that's technically optimized for AMD, but the performance gains on Ampere over Turing are simply great: +77.4% average FPS, +70.6% 1% percentile framerate.

Last but not least, Horizon Zero Dawn is the first big first-party PlayStation 4 exclusive to hit PC in a very long time. It is not, however, the first game running on Guerrilla's Decima Engine to launch on the platform as Kojima Productions' Death Stranding beat Horizon Zero Dawn to the punch in this regard.

Horizon Zero Dawn wasn't exactly the greatest PC port at launch, and unlike Death Stranding does not feature NVIDIA DLSS as it is another game where the developer/publisher partnered with AMD instead. That said, users rocking the Palit RTX 3090 will be able to enjoy much smoother gameplay thanks to 53.6% improved average FPS and 47.8% higher 1% percentile frame rate.

Game	Avg FPS gain (Ampere)	1% percentile gain (Ampere)
Wolfenstein: Youngblood	52.2%	46.4%
Metro Exodus	59.3%	79.2%
Far Cry New Dawn	40.6%	44.5%
Batman Arkham Knight	98.5%	193%
Tom Clancy's The Division 2	67.1%	56.7%
Assassin's Creed Origins	43.3%	43.1%
Ghost Recon Breakpoint	63.5%	59.9%
Borderlands 3	77.4%	70.6%
Horizon Zero Dawn	53.6%	47.8%
Average	61.7%	71.2%

Of course, your mileage may vary depending on which games you regularly play. Still, even without the outlier that is Batman Arkham Knight, the average FPS gain we measured with the Palit RTX 3090 over the Palit RTX 3080Ti is a solid 57%, while the 1% percentile gain is 56%. NVIDIA's promise of the greatest architectural leap yet holds true.

You can find additional information about our standard review process and ethics policy here.

9

WCCFTECH RATING

The Palit GeForce RTX 3090 GameRock OC is one of the best choices when it comes to price/performance ratio if you've decided to spend the cash on NVIDIA's latest flagship and go all-in with uncompromised PC gaming. It would be wiser to wait for the rumored RTX 3080Ti, of course, or even to just purchase an overclocked RTX 3080, but that is another topic entirely. If you're an enthusiast with the chance to get this card, both in terms of availability and affordability, you probably should. Those upgrading from a Palit RTX 2080Ti will feel a huge performance uplift, that's for sure.

Pros

• Incredible power that allows to fully take advantage of the HDMI 2.1 specs for 4K@100+FPS gaming on PC
• Aesthetically prettier than competitors with its diamond-like design
• Compared to other RTX 3090 models from other brands, it is slightly cheaper

Cons

• The Performance BIOS is just too noisy

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