NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition vs NVIDIA L40, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA L40 wins 11 of 12 benchmarks, averaging 82.6% faster.
NVIDIA L40's numbers are anchored estimates calibrated against our measured cards, pending first-party measurement. Treat small gaps as ties.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in Stable Diffusion XL, where NVIDIA L40 leads by 168% (4.18 vs 11.2 images/min); the closest fight is Llama 3.1 8B (37% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA L40 runs 11 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 3, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition | NVIDIA L40 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 4B tok/s | 148.46 | 211.33 | -30% |
| Llama 3.1 8B tok/s | 98.34 | 135.12 | -27% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 14B tok/s | 0 | 74.27 | n/a |
| Qwen3 32B tok/s | 0 | 34.08 | n/a |
| Llama 3.3 70B tok/s | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 4.18 | 11.2 | -63% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 0 | 5.625 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 0 | 2.464 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 Kontext dev images/min | 0 | 1.114 | n/a |
| Qwen-Image-Edit images/min | 0 | 0.48 | n/a |
| LTX-Video (distilled) frames/s | 0 | 2.61 | n/a |
| Wan 2.2 5B (720p) frames/s | 0 | 0.37 | n/a |
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition | NVIDIA L40 | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 11GB | 48GB |
| Architecture | Turing (TU102) | Ada Lovelace |
| Memory bandwidth | 616 GB/s | 864 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,545 MHz | 2,490 MHz |
| TDP | 250 W | 300 W |
| Launch MSRP | $1,199 | $7,000 |
| Release | 2018-09-20 | 2022-10-13 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition or NVIDIA L40?
- NVIDIA L40 performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 11 of 12 benchmarks in our suite with an average 82.6% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA L40?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition has 11GB VRAM and a 250W TDP, while NVIDIA L40 has 48GB VRAM and a 300W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA L40?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA L40 fits 9 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition. A model that exceeds VRAM doesn't run slower, it doesn't run at all, so the card that fits the model wins that workload outright.
- Where is the biggest performance difference between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA L40?
- Stable Diffusion XL: NVIDIA L40 leads by roughly 168% (4.18 vs 11.2 images/min) in our testing.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition full review · NVIDIA L40 full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings