Nvidia’s RTX 4080 SUPER is apopular choice for gamers, enthusiasts, and prospective upgradersthanks to it offering a small performance gain and a significant price cut compared to its predecessor. Nvidia aims to lock horns with AMD’s RX 7900XTX, which trades in the $900-$1100 range. Its $1000 price tag makes it a particularly appealing option compared to the competition as it offers arguably better performance in ray tracing and leverages Nvidia’s proprietary DLSS tech to provide adequate performance at much higher target resolutions and refresh rates than its predecessors with the help of its tensor cores.
To run Nvidia’s penultimate GPU to its maximum potential, users do need to leverage a high-end CPU or at least a relatively recent one for both gaming and productivity needs. This will ensure that there are no hindrances or bottlenecks when it comes to the GPU’s maximum potential performance.
Intel Core i5 14600KF 14-Core, 20-Thread CPU
AMD Ryzen 5 7600
The team at GameRant has made a tiered guide of the best CPUs in play to pair with the RTX 4080 SUPER in 2024 for a variety of use cases with a focus on performance, value for money, and efficiency.
Intel Core i7 14700KF 20-Core, 28-Thread CPU
The Power-hungry All-Rounder
The Intel Core i7 14700KF is the iGPU-less version of the unlocked Intel Core i7 14700K CPU, offering four additional efficiency cores and a lower price thanks to it skipping the integrated Intel UHD 770 that the latter offers. It requires a discrete graphics card for display and adequate cooling for one of the most power-hungry CPUs.
The Intel Core i7 14700KF comes in a 20-core, 28-thread configuration comprising eight performance-centric P cores and 12 efficiency-centric E Cores. This is four more than its predecessor, making itthe only 14th-generation CPU that received a core count bumpgeneration on generation. It offers significantly better value for money than its Core i9 counterpart, which caters to enthusiasts while offering better multicore performance than most of its competitors.
The 14700KF is a great choice along with the RTX 4080 SUPER because of its flexibility as an upgrade option. It works with Intel’s 12th and 13th-generation motherboards as well as the 14th-generation refresh motherboard while offering memory compatibility with DDR4 and DDR5 RAM modules alike. With decent single-core performance driving a good gaming experience and a significant multicore performance uplift versus the previous generation, the Intel Core i7 14700KF delivers excellent value for money versus the competition.
However, it is demanding in terms of thermals, requiring high-end cooling out of the box. It also comes with a significantly higher power draw than its competition, requiring an adequate power supply to keep things going. All in all, the Intel Core i7 14700KF is an excellent CPU for its price tag and a great option to pair with Nvidia’s RTX 4080 SUPER.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
The Best Zen For Gaming
The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is AMD’s latest and greatest CPU when it comes to gaming. With an excellent and highly efficient gaming performance that tops the charts currently, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is here to stay and has a crown to claim thanks to its 3D V-Cache-enabled prowess when it comes to gaming on a PC.The octa-core CPU currently happens to be the fastest in the business for gaming even as it leads efficiency charts at the top, making it a very sought-after gaming upgrade.
The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a powerful CPU that focuses completely on gaming as its core market. It currently delivers the best performance of any processor in many titles from 2024 and prior years, earning it a spot as one of the best CPUs for gaming in 2024 even as it continues to offer a superior price-to-performance ratio versus its competition.
The octa-core CPU delivers on its promised performance by leveraging the same stacked L3 cache that its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, does. This allows it to offer a much larger and faster cache memory on offer than its competition, including AMD’s non-X3D CPUs, resulting in significant performance gains, particularly for gaming.
For users looking for a more productivity-centric CPU, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D comes up quite short thanks to it having only eight cores. In comparison, the competition offers a higher multiple of the same at similar price points. This also makes it one of the most expensive CPUs core for core in a market where most CPUs offer eight or more cores.
For gamers looking for nothing more than the best tool to max out their gaming experience with the RTX 4080 SUPER, AMD’s offering is superior in terms of speed and much more efficient than many of its competitors, making it a no-brainer pick until a better option emerges.
Intel Core i9 14900KS 24-Core, 32-Thread CPU
Cherry-Picked Raptor Lake Refresh
The Intel Core i9 14900KS 24-core, 32-thread CPU is Intel’s special edition CPU take on its flagship 14th generation CPU, the Core i9 14900K.It is essentially a cherry-picked 14900K SKU that can push higher clocks with up to a minimum of 6.2 GHz on its P-Cores, making it effectively the highest-clocked CPU out of the box to date when it comes to boost clocks from Intel.It trades at a significant premium as a result and is expected, as a limited-run chip, to be a collectible SKU with high demand from enthusiasts and overclockers in 2024.
The Intel Core i9 14900KS, much like its predecessor, delivers high clocks out of the box in conjunction with a 24-core, 32-thread configuration that consists of 8 performance and 16 efficient cores. It exhibits a peak of as much as 6.2 Ghz on a single core while clocking in at sub-6 GHz clock speeds with adequate cooling.
This, coupled with Intel’s APO performance optimizations in certain games and considerable multicore muscle,makes for a very potent combinationas it easily handles both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. It can run on 12th and 13th-generation Intel motherboards as well as refreshed 13th-generation motherboards that run with Intel’s 14th-generation CPUs out of the box.
To push these higher clocks and performance numbers, Intel’s cherry-picked high-end chips consume a large amount of power versus the competition and are thermally equally demanding, making it challenging to run these without a liquid cooler that can handle them at a higher TDP. For users who want the best Intel experience that money can buy with the RTX 4080 SUPER, the Core i9 14900KS is the only play in town, albeit at a much less attractive price tag than the 14900K that trades for nearly $150 less than its more exclusive alternative.
AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X3D 16-Core, 32-Thread Desktop Processor
16 Cores of Zen 4
The 16-core, 32-thread desktop AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor is AMD’s answer to a resurgent Intel 13th generation processor lineup as it attempts to wrest back the gaming crown with the same technology that made the last generation 5800X3D such a powerful CPU.With 128MB of L3 cache on offer, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D leverages its 3D V-Cache muscle in gaming as well as its powerful new Zen 4-based cores in productivity to make for a potent enthusiast-grade CPU in the offing.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread desktop processorthat AMD calls a “for creators” product. It offers 16 high-performance Zen 4 cores in addition to a stacked 3D V-Cache on one of the two sets of eight cores, enabling it to offer both high performance in productivity benchmarks as well as excellent gaming performance.
However, it retains AMD’s higher efficiency track record, even at the higher end in terms of performance per watt. It can be configured to emulate the Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU’s gaming configuration and tends to exhibit better results in some titles. What does hold it back somewhat is AMD’s higher asking price. Even at the small discount it currently trades at, it remains at least $100 more expensive than Intel’s Core i9 14900K and in line with the cherry-picked Core i9 14900KS.
While it does scale better with higher-end coolers, it still requires less intensive cooling than its Intel counterparts, which could make users who are planning to run their CPUs for continuous workloads consider AMD’s lower power draw in their overall cost assessment even as it offers a versatile and well-rounded alternative to Intel’s chips which come with beefier power and cooling requirements out of the box.
Value-Added Rocket Lake Refresh Play
The Intel Core i5 14600KF 14-Core, 20-Thread CPU is a powerful mid-range CPU that replaces the last generation Intel Core i5 13600KF with higher clocks on both its performance and efficiency cores.Like all its siblings, it does offer better performance out-of-the-box versus its predecessors but replaces them at the same price points they sold last year. Unlike the Intel Core i5 14600K, this model trades at a small discount thanks to it skipping out on integrated graphics.
For users looking for a more budget-friendly option to use with the new RTX 4080 SUPER CPU, the 14600KF – much like its predecessor, the 13600KF – offers significantly better value for money than most of its higher-end alternatives. It offers a 14-core, 20-thread configuration that includes Intel’s updated Raptor Lake Refresh cores as well.
The 14600KF offers excellent gaming and productivity-centric performance alike as it leverages its six performance cores to deliver excellent performance in demanding titles while backing it up with the muscle of its eight single-threaded efficient cores for productivity tasks. It also offers compatibility with Intel’s existing 2021 and 2022-based motherboards as well as the refreshed 14th-generation motherboard that sports the 7XX series chipsets in 2024, making for a plethora of choices for users looking to pair one with Intel’s best-value processor.
Zen 4 For less
The Ryzen 5 7600 is the entry-level, yet very capable, gaming CPU from AMD that features 6 cores, 12 threads, and 32MB of L3 cache. It has a base clock speed of 3.8GHz and a boost clock speed of 5.1GHz. The Ryzen 5 7600 is an unlocked processor with a default TDP of 65W. It also has integrated RDNA 2 graphics and is the cheapest offering in the lineup with an iGPU.
For users looking to get an entry-level CPU for gaming or productivity, the hexacore AMD Ryzen 5 7600comes quite well-equipped compared to the competition. It offers a 6-core, 12-thread configuration of fast Zen 4 cores that can handle most games and productivity use cases even as it comes unlocked out of the box, allowing enthusiasts to push it to higher clocks.
While the stock cooler in the box isn’t designed for overclocking, it can still get the job done for most users, saving them a net of anywhere from $20 to $50 on average that they need to normally spend with most other unlocked options from AMD and Intel alike. The Ryzen 5 7600 offers an extremely power-efficient design that allows users to save on both a power supply unit and a third-party cooler as a result.
However, it compares slightly unfavorably versus the faster Ryzen 5 7600X but does offer a stock cooler to make up for the relatively similar price tag that both currently offer. In terms of productivity use cases, Intels 14-core 14500 or deca-core 14400/14400F offer better performance due to their higher core and thread counts offering significantly better multi-threaded performance.
For an all-rounder, however, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 forges its own path at a sub-$200 price tag and does it reasonably well enough to make it a solid recommendation to pair with the Nvidia RTX 4080 SUPER in 2024.
FAQ
Q: How much RAM does the Nvidia RTX 4080 SUPER have?
The Nvidia RTX 4080 SUPER comes with 16GB of fast GDDR6X RAM with a 256-bit bus width.
Q: What PCI-E generation is the RTX 4080 SUPER?
The RTX 4080 SUPER is a PCI-E 4.0 GPU leveraging all 16 lanes at its disposal. It is backward and forward-compatible with PCI-E 3.0 and PCI-E 5.0 interfaces, given the nature of the standard.
