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TL;DR: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 & 3090 Performance in OctaneRender
The raw performance of the new GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 is amazing in OctaneRender! Lets break it down for each card:
NVIDIA's RTX 3080 is faster than any RTX 20 Series card was, and more than twice as fast as the RTX 2080 Super for the same price. Combined with a 25% increase in VRAM over the 2080 Super, that increase in rendering speed makes it a fantastic value.
NVIDIA's RTX 3090 is 75% faster than the RTX Titan, which was the top consumer video card from last generation, while costing $1000 less and maintaining the same amount of VRAM. Moreover, the RTX Titan was only available from NVIDIA with their dual-fan cooling solution, meaning it could not be used effectively in multi-GPU configurations. The Founders Edition RTX 3090 that we tested for this article won't be well suited for that either, but other manufacturers have announced blower-style versions of the 3090 which should work in that type of configuration. At 350W of draw per card, though, current power supplies may not be able to run a full set of four.
When comparing these new cards to each other there are many trade-offs to consider. The RTX 3090 is about 20% faster for rendering in Octane than the 3080, which is not bad, but considering it also costs more than twice as much that isn't fantastic either. However, the 24GB of VRAM on the RTX 3090 is more than double what the 3080 offers (10GB) and the 3090 is also the only 30 Series card announced so far which supports NVLink. So for raw price:performance the RTX 3080 wins, but in terms of maximum performance, features, and support for rendering more complex scenes the GeForce RTX 3090 is clearly superior.
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Introduction
On September 1st 2020, NVIDIA launched the new GeForce RTX 30 Series, touting major advancements in performance and efficiency. While gaming is almost always the media's focus during these kinds of launches, professional applications like OTOY's OctaneRender should see significant per-card improvements as well. The RTX 3080 became available back on September 17th, and now the RTX 3090 has launched on the 24th, allowing us to test both cards against a wide range of previous-gen models to see how they perform.
There is a downside to this product launch for GPU-based rendering, though: the new cooler design that NVIDIA has introduced on their Founders Edition RTX 3000-series cards is even worse for multi-card configurations than the last generation. Thankfully, Gigabyte has announced a single-fan, blower-style variant of the RTX 3090 – which should allow for workstations with multiple video cards and higher performance. When those cards are available we will test how well the RTX 30 Series scales in Octane as more GPUs are added.
If you want to see the full specs for the new GeForce RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 cards, we recommend checking out NVIDIA's page for the new RTX 30 Series. But at a glance, here are what we consider to be the most important specs:
| VRAM | CUDA Cores | Boost Clock | Power | MSRP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 2070 Super | 8GB | 2,560 | 1.77 GHz | 215W | $499 |
| RTX 3070 | 8GB | 5,888 | 1.70 GHz | 220W | $499 |
| RTX 2080 Super | 8GB | 3,072 | 1.65 GHz | 250W | $699 |
| RTX 3080 | 10GB | 8,704 | 1.71 GHz | 320W | $699 |
| RTX 2080 Ti | 11GB | 4,352 | 1.55 GHz | 250W | $1,199 |
| RTX 3090 | 24GB | 10,496 | 1.73 GHz | 350W | $1,499 |
| Titan RTX | 24GB | 4,608 | 1.77 GHz | 280W | $2,499 |
While specs don't always line up with real-world performance, it is a great sign that NVIDIA has roughly doubled the number of CUDA cores compared to the GeForce RTX 20 Series cards at similar price points. At the top-end of the new line, NVIDIA appears to have also combined the roles of the previous-gen RTX 2080 Ti and Titan RTX into the new RTX 3090. It has as much VRAM as the Titan did, but for $1,000 less – putting it in the same ballpark as the 2080 Ti, but with more than double the memory and CUDA cores.
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Test Setup
Listed below are the specifications of the system we used for our OctaneBench testing:
| Test Platform | |
| CPU | Intel Core i9 10900K 10 Core |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-U12S |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte Z490 Vision D |
| RAM | 4x DDR4-2933 16GB (64GB total) |
| Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB NVIDIA Titan RTX 24GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB |
| Hard Drive | Samsung 960 Pro 1TB |
| Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Ver. 2004) OctaneBench 2020.1.5 |
*All the latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS, and firmware applied as of September 14th, 2020
Big thank you to Gigabyte for providing the GeForce RTX™ 3080 GAMING OC 10G sample used in our testing!
For this test, we used the latest version of OTOY's OctaneBench 2020.1.5. This edition was the first that worked properly with the new GeForce RTX 3080 video card – our attempts to use the older 4.00 and earlier 2020.1 variants did not recognize the new card as a viable render device. This likely means that all RTX 30 Series cards will not work properly on previous releases of OctaneRender.
We ran the test twice on each GPU, with the best result being included in the graphs below. If you wish to compare performance to your existing system, you can download OctaneBench 2020.1.5 directly from OTOY. They also maintain a database of results that you can reference and contribute to.
Benchmark Results
Here are charts showing the performance of the new GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 compared to the other video cards we tested:
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Performance Analysis
The raw performance of the new GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 is amazing in OctaneRender! Lets break it down for each card:
NVIDIA's RTX 3080 is faster than any RTX 20 Series card was, and more than twice as fast as the RTX 2080 Super for the same price. Combined with a 25% increase in VRAM over the 2080 Super, that increase in rendering speed makes it a fantastic value.
NVIDIA's RTX 3090 is 75% faster than the RTX Titan, which was the top consumer video card from last generation, while costing $1000 less and maintaining the same amount of VRAM. Moreover, the RTX Titan was only available from NVIDIA with their dual-fan cooling solution, meaning it could not be used effectively in multi-GPU configurations. The Founders Edition RTX 3090 that we tested for this article won't be well suited for that either, but other manufacturers have announced blower-style versions of the 3090 which should work in that type of configuration. At 350W of draw per card, though, current power supplies may not be able to run a full set of four.
When comparing these new cards to each other there are many trade-offs to consider. The RTX 3090 is about 20% faster for rendering in Octane than the 3080, which is not bad, but considering it also costs more than twice as much that isn't fantastic either. However, the 24GB of VRAM on the RTX 3090 is more than double what the 3080 offers (10GB) and the 3090 is also the only 30 Series card announced so far which supports NVLink. So for raw price:performance the RTX 3080 wins, but in terms of maximum performance, features, and support for rendering more complex scenes the GeForce RTX 3090 is clearly superior.
Are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 & 3090 Good for OctaneRender?
Yes, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 are fantastic cards for OctaneRender! Which one is right for you will depend on several factors:
- RTX 3080 10GB – This card is more affordable and offers better rendering performance-per-dollar if you consider the card alone. However, its lower amount of VRAM may limit the complexity of scenes you can render and it lacks NVLink support as well.
- RTX 3090 24GB – This card is about 20% faster for rendering, with 140% more onboard memory and support for NVLink. That means it will be much better suited to working with large scenes and detailed geometry. Moreover, Gigabyte has announced a dual-slot, single-fan version of this card which should allow multiple GPUs in a single system for increased performance.
As always, please keep in mind that these results are strictly for GPU-based rendering in OctaneRender. If you have performance concerns for other applications in your workflow, we highly recommend checking out our Hardware Articles (you can filter by "Video Card") for the latest information on how a wide range of programs perform with various GPUs, CPUs, and other hardware.
Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.
Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.