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The RTX 4080 SUPER remains a 16 GB device; SUPER does not expand capacity or replace software upgrade validation.
SUPER is not a capacity variant
The RTX 4080 SUPER is a separate Ada Lovelace model with 16 GB GDDR6X and reference board power of 320 W. The ordinary RTX 4080 also occupies the 16 GB class, so moving between them is not a memory expansion. The table describes one GPU without automatic pooling. An AIB board can differ in cooling and dimensions. Preserve SUPER in the inventory name: removing it makes upgrade results harder to associate and turns two different cards into an ambiguous device in the log.
| Official variant | Memory per GPU | Memory type | Board power | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER — 16 GB NVIDIA comparison design | 16 GB | GDDR6X | 320 W | Specification |
Freeze the LLM before an upgrade
vLLM specifies hardware minimums and installation conditions rather than certifying every backend for every checkpoint. For the RTX 4080 SUPER, preserve weights, tokenizer, dtype and context settings. Hold them constant while changing the worker software version in the first experiment. Compare envelope correctness, completion and memory. If behavior changes, inspect configuration and selected kernels first. Equal 16 GB capacities do not establish equal runtime behavior, and a correct short response does not define context limits or the number of simultaneously served clients. These require their own bounded workload measurements.
Give rendering a regression project
Cycles CUDA and OptiX provide a verifiable path to RTX hardware. Preserve scene, assets, quality settings and backend for the SUPER. After upgrading, repeat the same batch job and inspect both image and device log. Distinguish scene preparation failure from execution failure when results change. Hardware tracing does not certify every external renderer. Record host RAM use separately: completion does not establish full VRAM residency. A new worker should not be accepted solely because it displays the card in a list of available devices. It must produce the expected project artifact.
Associate results with the installation
The server record contains AIB model, driver, software image and PCI identity. Before restoring jobs, confirm that an older process is not retaining memory alongside the new one. No HTTP traffic does not establish engine unloading. Verify power and chassis airflow separately; 320 W concerns the board specification rather than whole node consumption. When GPU and software stack change together, split the comparison into stages. Otherwise the experiment cannot explain which factor caused new inference or render worker behavior, even when the final overall outcome appears successful.
Preserve the release acceptance artifact
The package links RTX 4080 SUPER inventory, both task manifests and before/after results. Each row contains status, peak VRAM/RAM, version and diagnostic error. If only inference fails, inspect model and runtime; if only rendering fails, inspect renderer and assets. If both fail, investigate shared driver or device mapping first. The decision concerns this upgrade and corpus. It does not promise a fixed gain over the ordinary 4080, derive tokens from gaming tests or certify arbitrary future workloads. Keep those boundaries visible alongside the acceptance result.
Local LLMs on 16GB VRAM: Narrow the Model Choice · GPU benchmarks: median, spread and trial order · GPU catalog