Upgraded from an RTX 2070 to an RTX 3080 - here are my results

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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Just thought some of you might have interest. Now these results are by NO MEANS scientific and I’m sure I’ll get responses here from many with older hardware getting better framerates. Cool, congrats to those of you :+1: This is just what I found doing a few places trying to take screenshots in exactly the same positions as best I can then afterward I wrote down the FPS. I decided there’s no point in posting 24 5120x1440 images on here so instead I’m just doing the numbers.

Nvidia driver used for both cards is 461.72 (latest) and same Nvidia control panel settings for each card. Settings are all on Ultra, render scaling 100%, LOD 200. Only things turned off are Motion Blue and Lens Correction. I took the screenshots doing a variety of both cockpit and external on runway and also cockpit and external in flight. Same time of day and same weather settings were used for each comparison.

System specs:

Intel i9 10900 (non-K) liquid cooled
MSI MPG Z490 motherboard
32gb G.Skill DDR4 3200mhz memory XMP Profile enabled
Samsung Evo 970 Plus nvme drives
RTX 2070 (non-super) is an MSI Ventus
RTX 3080 is an Asus TUF
Viotek SUW49DA monitor at 5120x1440 resolution

MSFS 2020

Honolulu
Image 1 RTX 2070 24.3fps | RTX 3080 41.1fps
Image 2 RTX 2070 26.1fps | RTX 3080 36.6fps
Image 3 RTX 2070 22.0fps | RTX 3080 30.9fps
Image 4 RTX 2070 22.4fps | RTX 3080 34.3fps
Image 5 RTX 2070 23.7fps | RTX 3080 33.8fps

Manhattan
Image 6 RTX 2070 19.7fps | RTX 3080 30.8fps
Image 7 RTX 2070 20.4fps | RTX 3080 30.9fps

London
Image 8 RTX 2070 11.9fps | RTX 3080 18.8fps
Image 9 RTX 2070 10.1fps | RTX 3080 15.6fps

X-Plane 11

Honolulu
Image 1 RTX 2070 21.3fps | RTX 3080 41.1fps
Image 2 RTX 2070 33.7fps | RTX 3080 51.7fps
Image 3 RTX 2070 34.2fps | RTX 3080 52.9fps

As you can see with MSFS 2020 I only gained on average around 10-11fps or so, which I am fine with for now. For X-Plane I am using a few graphical enhancing plugins and some hi-res Ortho scenery for Hawaii and I gained on average a 65% performance boost. I’m happy with both and I honestly did not expect more than 10fps as I’ve seen people on here with 3090’s still getting lower FPS than you’d expect, I believe it’s completely MSFS’s coding. Perhaps DirectX 12 will help, or in time they obviously will likely streamline their coding. I will note that I no longer get “Limited by GPU” but now the holdback is “Limited by Main Thread”. I got my RTX 3080 by buying a prebuilt machine that came into stock on Newegg. I’d been thinking of upgrading my DAW (music writing machine) anyhow and figured I’ll install the card in my flight sim machine. When all is said an done and I sell the 2070 and current DAW the cost to me should be no more than buying the card retail.

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Thanks for this! I’m buying a new PC and debating getting the 3080 or the 6800XT. Going from a GTX1070, I hope my improvement is more dramatic.

I’m hoping that further optimization and DX12 will make these numbers look better in the near future.

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Thank you so much for this post. I’m in the same boat and was wondering how much more fps I could get by upgrading from 2070 to 3080. The only thing that is holding be back is that 3080 is nowhere available for a recent price :).

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My pleasure @Hambone747 and @CanineJam520641

As you see there are other threads on here with very happy 3070 users as well. Only difference I always see is that most of the people getting 50-60fps are playing in 2560x1440 and my monitor is essentially two of those. So for my resolution and for 4K I wouldn’t be expecting those types of framerates on Ultra settings around big cities and such. I’ve seen the YouTube videos and there really is only a small improvement using Ultra over High, so that’s also a good option to get more FPS.

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Is there a improvement in visuals? I have a GTX 1070 and I am happy with the FPS I get but do you get better eye candy with the new card?

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Just test it yourself. You’ll lose fps but you’re able to see how ultra looks like. There is nothing in MSFS that the 3080 could show that your 1070 couldn’t.

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Just a lot sharper and cleaner?

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Not sure where you got this quote from. But it won’t really be sharper or cleaner with an 3080 as long as you have the same display and the same render scaling.
There is literally no difference to be expected other than more fps. MSFS doesn’t take advantage of modern algorithms like DLSS/RayTracing that could maybe make a difference.

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Not at all, just motion smoothness. There’s no reason visuals would be improved outside of if you couldn’t run a higher resolution that the card upgrade would also allow. I was already at 5120x1440 with Ultra settings.

That said, the extra fps smoothness has been friggin wonderful! Even in areas where I only gained 10-12fps and top out around 30-35fps or so still look much much better. Other areas (mountains and low density city areas) I’m getting anywhere between 40-55fps and I can totally see the difference, so much smoother. Even smoother in X-Plane. So it was worth it for me but yeah I had to buy a whole machine to get the card. Good thing I was already considering upgrading my DAW otherwise I wouldn’t have spent the money. I did get a nice $600 same day I put my RTX 2070 on Craigslist which softened the cost. Then selling my previous DAW to my brother and making a few hundred back there too.

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What DAW do you use? I too have two main functions for my PC, flight sims and Reason 11
AMD 5800X/ASUS 6800XT-OC/32GB 3600mhz ram/ 2 Samsung Evo M2 drive 980/970/2560x1440
Cant wait for MSOBO to fix what they broke from the last update. In the meantime I Reason on…lol

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Nice man :metal: I use Cubase. Part of the upgrade is the move from Cubase 6 to 11, and I know 6 is very old but it’s been working great so I didn’t feel any urgent need. I was also on Windows 7 for my DAW but obviously am switching to 10. I keep my machines separate and for the DAW I keep the NIC/wireless disabled as I don’t run antivirus software on it and keep it off the net. I usually download new stuff to a USB stick for install and only activate the internet for authorizations. For my general internet use and “everything else” machine (video editing, photo editing, etc) I use Linux Mint on another separate machine. I too am running all nvme drives on my machines now and my flight sim machine is still the most powerful: i9 10900 cpu, 32gb 3200mhz ram low latencies, 2x Samsung Evo 970 Plus 1TB NVMe’s, etc.

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How many FPS in JKF landing? my tuf3080 would lower than 20 when i am landing

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To RTX 3080 owners…

I’ve been running MSFS on my 3080 for several months now. When I first bought it, I spent days tweaking different settings and configs to squeeze the best out of it (or at least try to). I concluded at the time, that undervolting the 3080 gave me more consistent FPS whilst consuming less power (and in return running cooler).

My question now is, have recent driver releases (466.11) improved efficiency that negates the need to undervolt?

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