TheNvidia RTX 5080 did n’t blow the door off our test rigwhen we put it through its paces , but it did show itself to be a very fast , innovative GPU with a range of exciting feature film . But how much faster is it than its last - generation counterpart ? And is it worth upgrading to if you ’re a generation behind ?
If you ’d rather just buy thebest art card right now , we have a guide for that . But if you ’re curious how the RTX 5080 and 4080 Super pit up , here ’s how .
Specs
Spec for spec , there is n’t much that separates these two cards . The RTX 5080 has just five percent more CUDA cores , a boost clock that ’s almost identical , the same amount of memory , and the same motorbus width . RT and Tensor nitty-gritty are a new propagation , so should do better , but marrow counts are about identical .
The only literal change with the RTX 5080 besides the Blackwell computer architecture , is the faster GDDR7 memory , which take the overall memory bandwidth up a couple of hundred Gigabytes per secondly . But that added power does come at the cost of extra power demands , with a near-15 % gamy TDP .
If Blackwell was such a major redesign of Nvidia ’s GPU architecture that we could ask expectant gains from that alone , we might be more excited . Multiple skeleton multiplication is a dainty feature for the newer card which the 4080 Super ca n’t offer , but outside of that , there ’s not even much to be excited about on report .
But what about the real Earth ?
Performance
Unfortunately , the RTX 5080 does n’t pull any big surprises out of the chapeau when it ’s running secret plan . At 4 kB , where this card should really babble out , it does beat out the RTX 4080 Super , but not by any huge margins . Overall , it ’s around 20 % quicker , but there are some games where it ’s much nearer and even a few where the 4080 Super is able-bodied to keep rate with the newer card .
That ’s without all the added potential of multiple frame generation , but that ’s hardly a ecumenical feature and not one everyone even like enabling .
The chronicle at 1440p is very similar , but with even less of a gap between these two card . The performance uplift from the 5080 here is closer to 16 % , further highlighting the limited welfare of upgrading from the old 40 - series card to its 50 - series choice .
One area where the RTX 5080 holds a strong vantage , at least , is in ray of light tracing . There we saw a much greater generational upthrow and it ’s one of the few instances where the RTX 5080 offers credible competition to the last - generation king , the RTX 4090 . The fact it can retain 60 FPS inBlack Myth : Wukong , even with DLSS helping it along , is a square achievement .
The multi - frame coevals is a satisfying win for the RTX 5080 , though . In compatible games where the frame rate might not be as politic as you ’d like ( but still gamey enough to feed the algorithm enough frame to work with ) it can double , or even triple your frame charge per unit , which can make everything far tranquil . It ’s something the RTX 4080 Super can approximate with its older tensor core and single frame gen pick , but it ’s not in the same ballpark as what the 5080 can manage .
WithDLSS 4as well , multi - frame multiplication can be a virile compounding for hitting crazy frame number — like 200 + FPS at 4 K in some games . But outside of those specific experiences , the 5080 does n’t do much that the 4080 Super ca n’t do already .
Thermals and sizing
The RTX 4080 Super comes with the same overbuilt tank as the RTX 4090 ( in source design at least ) , so it ’s incredibly coolheaded and unruffled for such a high - end GPU . But it is monolithic , taking up four slots and barely meet in even large ATX cases .
With the RTX 5080 Nvidia go some magic to modernise a truly minuscule cooler for such a demanding card . It ’s just two slot wide , making it more viable for modest form factor PCs . It does , however , line a monstrous 360W of power , so it will make small case scheme red-hot , even if the GPU itself stays comparatively cool and restrained .
The RTX 4080 Super might be a better bet…
The RTX 5080 should be the high - end RTX 50 - series card we ’re recommending , but it ’s really hard to . Its generational public presentation upthrust is n’t that impressive , it ’s modified to just 16 GB of VRAM , which is already being impregnate by some of the most demanding games , and its pricing is already decease crazy . propose retail at $ 1,000 is all well and good , but lineage is limited and third parties are already pushing that price to around $ 1,500 on some models . Not to bring up what scalper will do .
Not that the 4080 Super is easy to get hold of at a good price , either . If you could , it ’s still a fantastically subject bill of fare and you might be able to snatch a steal from a retailer that is n’t quite up with the meter . But a flying glance around today show them out of livestock just about everywhere .
Want some alternatives?Here are the cards we recommend you buy instead of the 5080 . instead , consider await to see what AMD ’s RX 9070 has to pop the question . It might be competitive . Wejust do n’t know enough to say for certain , yet .
