RTX 40-Series for Improved Ray Tracing: A Worthwhile Investment?

The Evolution of Ray Tracing and Nvidia‘s GPUs

Ray tracing technology has been around for decades in film production and animation, aiming to simulate realistic lighting and shadows by modeling the physical behavior of light rays. However in real-time graphics like video games, traditional rasterization rendering has been the norm due to performance limitations.

That changed in 2018 when Nvidia introduced its RTX 20-series graphics cards and Turing architecture, bringing hardware-accelerated ray tracing to consumer GPUs for the first time. This finally enabled real-time ray traced effects in games, providing much more realistic lighting, reflections, shadows and global illumination.

The first iteration of ray tracing cores and tech in the RTX 2000-series was still somewhat limited however, with mixed performance results. It showed promise but couldn‘t yet run ray tracing fully smoothly at high resolutions and frame rates.

Nvidia‘s follow up Ampere architecture and RTX 3000-series in 2020 brought second-gen ray tracing cores and greatly improved performance. Popular games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Call of Duty Cold War implemented ray traced effects, giving a taste of their stunning potential.

But to achieve the true photorealistic results that ray tracing promises, another leap was needed – which brings us to the brand new RTX 40-series…

Introducing the RTX 4090 and 4080 GPUs

October 2022 saw Nvidia unveil its new flagship graphics card, the GeForce RTX 4090, built on the all-new efficient Ada Lovelace architecture.

This powerhouse GPU packs a whopping 76 billion transistors and up to 24GB of GDDR6X video memory running at 21 Gbps. It utterly demolishes previous gen cards, benchmarking on average 2-4X faster than the mighty RTX 3090 Ti.

And coming shortly on November 16th is Nvidia‘s second RTX 40-series card, the GeForce RTX 4080 16GB.

While not quite as blazingly quick as the 4090, the RTX 4080 also packs major performance gains over last-gen cards, hitting on average 60% faster speeds than the RTX 3080 Ti in testing.

But raw computing power and benchmarks alone don‘t reveal the full extent of improvements these new GPUs provide…

Optimized Ray Tracing Performance

The biggest advancements in the RTX 40-series aren‘t just faster clocks and added cores, but rather massive optimizations specifically for ray tracing workloads. This includes:

• 3rd-gen RT Cores – dedicated ray tracing processors run up to 2X faster than before
• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) – reduces shading divergence to improve RT efficiency up to 2X
• Opacity Micro-Maps (OMM) – accelerates boundary tests for alpha-tested ray tracing by up to 2X

Combined together, these ray tracing focused improvements result in stunning performance gains in graphically demanding games using such effects, like Cyberpunk, Forza Horizon 5, Dying Light 2, Mechwarrior 5, F.I.S.T. Forged In Shadow Torch and more…

As an example, the RTX 4080 averaged over 100 FPS at 4K resolution in Cyberpunk 2077 with maxed quality ray tracing enabled in testing. Compare that to the RTX 3080 Ti which could only hit 55 FPS, illustrating the massive real-world difference.

This level of stellar ray tracing performance simply wasn‘t possible before and represents a true next-gen leap in immersive graphics…

Is Upgrading Worth it Just for Ray Tracing?

Of course, the RTX 4090 and 4080 don‘t come cheap, retailing for $1,599 and $1,199 respectively at launch. And most gamers are still on 1080p screens where the differences are less noticeable.

So is buying one purely to maximize ray tracing a sensible investment for the average user?

If you‘re wanting to fully experience ray tracing‘s potential at 4K resolution and 60 FPS+ frame rates, then yes absolutely. No other consumer GPUs can provide this level of realistic lighting and reflections currently.

Plus with the confirmed performance gains over last-gen, you‘ll likely be set for many years without needing another upgrade as more ray traced games release.

However, if you‘re still gaming at 1440p or below, don‘t care as much about cutting-edge graphics, and/or have a decent RTX 3000-series card already, then the upgrade is harder to justify. You‘ll likely see only moderate visual improvements in your games for a high price.

Ultimately it depends how much you value bleeding-edge performance and those jaw-dropping ray-traced visuals!

For workstation uses like 3D rendering, architectural visualization, AI research etc, the raw power of these GPUs also can‘t be ignored. The RTX 4080 and 4090 will slash through your workflows thanks to technologies like OptiX.

When More Ray Tracing Games Are Coming

If you don‘t think current ray tracing game support justifies buying an RTX 40-series GPU yet, then deals will likely improve after the new year.

Highly anticipated titles coming in 2023 like Atomic Heart, Starfield, The Day Before, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 have all confirmed implementations of ray tracing or other Nvidia graphics effects.

Plus older games are being retrofitted with ray tracing. Nvidia‘s new RTX Remix modding tool (currently in beta) makes it simple to add ray traced effects into classic games like Portal and The Witcher 3.

So as game developer adoption continues ramping up, purchasing a new RTX 40-series card will become an easier choice for those desiring premium visuals.

Alternatives to Consider

If the RTX 4080 and 4090 end up being overkill or not in your budget, alternatives are still available too…

• RTX 3080 12GB – Offers great value for 1440p ray tracing around only $700 now
• RTX 3090 Ti – Matches 4080 ray tracing for hundreds less if found discounted
• Radeon RX 7900 XTX – AMD‘s new flagship competes with 4090 rocking impressive tech

Or if you don‘t need a graphics upgrade yet anyway, waiting 6-12 months for next-gen RTX 4070 or even RTX 50-series cards could make sense. As production ramps up and crypto demand fades, better ray tracing value will come.

So don‘t rush out upgrading solely for improved ray tracing until it suits your budget and gaming desires!

The Verdict?

Ray tracing has been a long time coming to real-time computer graphics, and still shows merely a fraction of its incredible potential. For those wanting to experience it fully maxed out right now, Nvidia‘s RTX 4090 and 4080 are clearly where it‘s at.

These new GPUs utterly demolish previous generation cards when it comes to ray tracing performance, thanks to shader optimizations tailored specifically for such workloads. We‘re talking twice as fast or more!

So if jaw-dropping visuals are critical and you game at 4K resolution, then yes, upgrading to the 40-series largely for better ray tracing will be money well spent. You‘ll unlock a whole new level of realism. Just be sure to have a compatible high refresh rate monitor to do them justice!

Yet if you predominantly play at lower resolutions, own a decent 3000-series card already, or ray tracing isn‘t a top priority feature, then holding off could be the smarter move. The visual gains likely won‘t seem as substantial from lesser GPUs or monitors.

Either way, with adoption across both games and professional applications still rapidly growing, the future looks incredibly bright for real-time ray tracing. Nvidia‘s RTX technologies will only become more ubiquitous and capable in the years ahead.

So jump on-board now with the new 40-series if you‘ve got the hardware to match, or otherwise, just wait a little longer for ray tracing‘s soaring potential to spread far and wide!