There ’s an unfortunate irony in the world of microcomputer gaming properly now . As soon as AMD decided toconcede the flagship struggle to Nvidia , Team Green put out what might be its most disappointing flagship offering in a decade in the frame of theRTX 5080 .
Each coevals , we talk about the dynamic betweenAMD and Nvidia . And for snug to a decade now , there ’s been a linear advancement between the two firebrand . AMD originally focused on budget offerings to undersell Nvidia ’s mainstream mountain chain , but it slowly built up major power each propagation to eventually repugn what Nvidia was able to do at a flagship level . We got two generation of a true , one - to - one battle between AMD and Nvidia . And decently when AMD was about to get a leg up , it decide to miss for the count .
One step behind
There ’s some important diachronic context here . In the former 2000s , ATI and Nvidia duked it out for GPU domination , but that changed toward the end of the decade . AMD bought ATI in 2006 , and by 2010 , it scrubbed the ATI name entirely . It continued to battle Nvidia at the high end , but that easy morphed in the year that watch .
In 2013 , Nvidia launched the first Titan card , cementing itself as a performance leader . It continued to do so for the next two generations , and by the prison term AMD finally released its Polaris and Vega offering , a narrative was already in place . AMD delivered better value for the money , but if you were strictly after rude carrying out , it was Nvidia ’s game .
AMD strike a reset in 2019 with the first RDNA computer architecture . alternatively of focusing on the mellow remnant where it would fall back to Nvidia ’s RTX 20 - series offerings , it focused on midrange artwork cards . And it worked . By the RDNA 2 propagation , AMD was able to contest Nvidia ’s RTX 3090 with its own RX 6900 crosstalk . But then Nvidia struck back in a Titan - esque mode , and it looks like AMD hunkered down to rebroadcast its Navi playbook .
Nvidia released theRTX 3090 Ti , once again cementing it at the top of the carrying into action chart . AMD countered with theRX 6950 XT , but it was too late . Then , in the next propagation , AMD once again come out swing with its flagshipRX 7900 XTX , but once again , Nvidia was one tone ahead . The RX 7900 XTX could compete with the RTX 4080 , but the cream of the cropRTX 4090was provide uncontested . rumor have swirled about an RTX 4090 Ti , which I would n’t be surprised if Nvidia left in the armoured combat vehicle in fount AMD took the scrap to the flagship grade once again .
In at least the last decade , it feels like AMD has always nonplus the short last of the reefer . GCN graphics card were hefty and pop , but they were the target of cryptocurrency miners , hit them hard to total by . Vega offered flagship performance but at insane business leader demands compared to Nvidia . And most recently , you could get peak 4 K performance with RDNA 2 or RDNA 3 offering , but you ’d have to give up re trace power and Nvidia ’s DLSS .
It ’s always seemed like AMD is just one bantam step behind Nvidia , so I understand why the society wanted to tally a reset as it did with Navi . It ’s just a ignominy that reset is amount when Nvidia decided to put out a specially disappointing propagation of GPUs .
You miss the shots you don’t take
Alright , now we ’re back to the RTX 5080 . It ’s a very strange GPU to evaluate , but I ’ll seek to paint a delineation ofwhyit ’s unsatisfying . For starters , the card is half the damage of the RTX 5090 , but it comes with about 70 % of the carrying out . That inherently means it ’s a dear value , but I recommended the more expensive card in myRTX 5090 review . I do n’t recommend the RTX 5080 , at least for most masses . That may seem like a contradiction , but it ’s not . It ’s a paradox .
That standard does n’t go for to the RTX 5080 , not only because it ’s $ 1,000 less than the RTX 5090 , but also because it ’s not the estimable . Value plays a much more significant role , and Nvidia dropped the ball on that front . The RTX 5080 is slower than the RTX 4090 , and it ’s a mere 18 % faster than the RTX 4080 Super . For setting , the basal RTX 4080 was around 30 % faster than the RTX 3090 , and the RTX 3080 was about 30 % faster than the RTX 2080 Ti . We ’re talking about a deficit of close to 50 % compare to what Nvidia delivered in previous coevals .
Raw performance may be Nvidia ’s game . But time value is AMD ’s , and PC gamers are in heroic pauperism of a little bit of economic value right now .
This is , or at least would be , the consummate sentence for an AMD flagship that could take the battle to Nvidia ’s 80 - course of study offering . Nvidia may attempt to get the upper hand by releasing something more powerful or unload the price of the RTX 5080 , but PC gamers at last win in that situation . But we are n’t getting an AMD flagship this genesis . If you have $ 1,000 to burn on a 4 K graphics card , the RTX 5080 is your best option . It should n’t be , but it is .
I suspect we ’ll get a value - focused conflict lower down the plenty with Nvidia ’s RTX 5070 and AMD ’s RX 9070 XT , but it ’ll likely be a replay of what we ’ve seen in past generations . AMD deport better value , but Nvidia claims a top expansion slot withfeatures like DLSS 4 . I ’m not rooting for one team or the other here , but there ’s a sobering reality the PC play gang will have to reckon with rather or later . If no one can contest Nvidia , the lineament of hardware will quickly belittle .
