Review Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition review: Incremental gains over the previous generation

[oofdragon]

It's going to be slower than a 7900XTX which the 5080 is already 15% faster than. We're likely looking at a 20% or larger gap which is not virtually the same.

The 5080 is 10% faster at best than a 4080 or 7900XTX range which the 9070 XT is exactly at. And no even if it was 20% you still would not tell them apart. 20% is 60fps vs 72fps, 100fps vs 120fps, 30fps vs 36 fps, it doesn't make any difference at all. 10% then you are just shilling

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

10% difference they are virtually the same

Eh, 10% is not virtually the same. Margin of error, yes, 2-3%. Not 10%. But that's a subjective call

 

[spongiemaster]

The 5080 is 10% faster at best than a 4080 or 7900XTX range which the 9070 XT is exactly at. And no even if it was 20% you still would not tell them apart. 20% is 60fps vs 72fps, 100fps vs 120fps, 30fps vs 36 fps, it doesn't make any difference at all. 10% then you are just shilling

Someone posted the comparison chart in this thread. Do the math. At 4k, the gap is 15%.

 

[tamalero]

Not good. Can't imagine even Nvidia engineers are proud of this product.

Pretty sure they were overrode by suits. Specially Jensen.. "make everything AI" is the key phrase. Even after Nvidia's bet on everything AI got them sinking 500 billion with the news of the chinese AI model.

The 5080 is 10% faster at best than a 4080 or 7900XTX range which the 9070 XT is exactly at. And no even if it was 20% you still would not tell them apart. 20% is 60fps vs 72fps, 100fps vs 120fps, 30fps vs 36 fps, it doesn't make any difference at all. 10% then you are just shilling

This is actually one of the very few reviews that claims 10% improvement. Most reviewers I ve seen are on the 8% percentile. Being slower in some games too. While boosting higher for RT titles.

 

[valthuer]

Excellent work as always, @JarredWaltonGPU ! Just one question: when you tested the card on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, did you use the locked ("Unobtainium") settings of the game?

 

[salgado18]

So, it should be called RTX 5070? Then Nvidia would have room for an intemediate card, in case AMD does get a faster card. Also, it would feel like an upgrade, even if it makes an expensive 70-series card it would be a massive upgrade.

 

[palladin9479]

So yeah looks like the 5090 really was just a 4090 super. Generationally almost no increase in performance per compute unit, just squeezing a few more units per wafer then trying to compensate by increasing memory bandwidth. Usually it's the memory bandwidth that's holding the compute back but it looks like they've maximized what they can get out of this compute level.

 

[jlake3]

Just because someone wants something, doesn't mean it is in their budget. Exactly.

We're talking about a GPU that by itself costs more than many build guides, at a time when 4K monitors are getting more and more affordable. Cards shouldn't be withholding the VRAM that would help at high resolutions because your budget is merely high and not "the best, regardless the cost".

 

[artk2219]

Well, its nice to see the RX 9070 XT and B770 have a decent chance to make a difference this generation. Provided AMD doesn't mess it up in the home stretch, which has been their standard modus operandi for the last few launches, and Intel can actually deliver.

 

[spongiemaster]

We're talking about a GPU that by itself costs more than many build guides, at a time when 4K monitors are getting more and more affordable. Cards shouldn't be withholding the VRAM that would help at high resolutions because your budget is merely high and not "the best, regardless the cost".

There is no issue gaming at 4k with 16GB of RAM. Don't believe the FUD. The 5080 is still the 3rd fastest card ever at 4k, and nothing is going to change that until there is refresh or 6000 series is released.

 

[Thunder64]

There is no issue gaming at 4k with 16GB of RAM.

Wrong. Well, most of the time it is OK. But paying for a premium product should have premium featers, like more VRAM.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Given it's on the same node as the 40xx, is it not expected that the increase in performance would be limited? In this case, does the node hold back the hardware?

I mean there's only so much nVidia can do in that space. This is not me condoning this underwhelming performance at all, but rather, more a reflection of nVidia passing this crap off as a 'new' gen. The overall performance increase is very disappointing to say the least. Not like what would be expected.

With that said, another poster in this thread made a valid point. out of all of these cards, the only one to buy is the massively overpriced 5090. Anything below is just disappointing. And the only reason for the 5090, is because it is the best GPU, but only by a hairs breadth!!!

Having only bought a 4070 Super about 3 months ago, I'm eager to see the comparison for the 5070. It will be very interesting.

 

[Jagar123]

When the 4080 released I was willing to pay $750 for that product. Now the 5090 is ~8-15% faster for $999? No thanks Nvidia.

 

[Gaidax]

5080 seems to be the trap of the Blackwell.

The whole generation banks on stuff that won't really be there for another 2-3 years, but at least 5090 stuffed 30% more shaders and 32GB VRAM that made it make some sense.

This one though? Its only saving grace is that it does not cost more than its equivalent from the previous gen. The rest mostly bells and whistles that will take years to manifest.

 

[User of Computers]

Nvidia delivered us the perfect 4080 ti super! Thanks Jensen!

 

[Gaidax]

There is no issue gaming at 4k with 16GB of RAM. Don't believe the FUD. The 5080 is still the 3rd fastest card ever at 4k, and nothing is going to change that until there is refresh or 6000 series is released.

While you're technically correct, having a $1k GPU giving amount of RAM that bottlenecks it at one of the two the very games they show off as a use case is not great.

Namely Indiana Jones Ultra DLSS Transformer with MFG at 4k, which slurps more than 16GB VRAM already.

Not a good look there.

 

[SydneyAngel]

After see what the 5080 can do i am going to keep my 4070ti super and just buy some more games lol

 

[User of Computers]

which the 9070 XT is exactly at.

We can confirm nothing, because actually we know nothing. As far as we know, 9070 XT is just a 7900 XT except cheaper, rendering this entire discussion moot and stupid.

 

[JayGau]

Looks like I gonna keep my 4080 for another while. 1000$ for 10% improvement and a load of fake frames, that sounds a little exaggerated. It's clear that Nvidia has no clue how to improve raw performance and focuses on MFG to sell the cards. It's like Intel with their new CPUs that are clones of the previous gen with slightly faster clock and higher power draw, except that Nvidia has the software trick for their marketing.

And I really don't understand why they put the cable connector vertically like this (I understand the angle and that's very good, but why vertical?). At least if you do that make the adapter cable longer. When the cable goes under the card you don't see these three 8-pin cables, but on the side they are very visible and since the cable is not long enough (according to the pictures the connectors don't reach the back of the card) you cannot reach behind the case side panel.

 

[JayGau]

5080 seems to be the trap of the Blackwell.

The whole generation banks on stuff that won't really be there for another 2-3 years, but at least 5090 stuffed 30% more shaders and 32GB VRAM that made it make some sense.

This one though? Its only saving grace is that it does not cost more than its equivalent from the previous gen. The rest mostly bells and whistles that will take years to manifest.

At $2000+, the 5090 doesn't make much sense either.

 

[SkyBill40]

These numbers are, quite honestly, disappointing; however, it was touched upon that this is most likely driver related and once the new ones are released there should be an uptick (hopefully a strong one) in performance between now and at that point. I'm still sitting just fine with my EVGA 3080 FTW card, but I'm interested so long as this makes for a suitably significant jump given the generational leap I'd get.

The AIB cards are going to probably be in the $1400 range at the low end seeing NVIDIA has announced chip shortages (in what likely is an effort to drive up prices and increase their profits just as they've done for a decade), and that might be a bit more than I'm willing to pay to make the leap. I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

 

[VizzieTheViz]

At $2000+, the 5090 doesn't make much sense either.

At least it’s somewhat faster than a 4090 and should be quite future proof. If you can actually buy one for $2K than that’s not a bad deal. That’ll be months away though, if ever, if we are to believe Nvidia. They hardly made any and those will be sold out and sold for far more than $2K.

 

[80251]

Will the prices for 5090s ever come down? I can't help but notice the 4090s seemed to actually go UP in price at the end of their product cycle -- at least at the retail level (i.e. MSRP never seemed to change).

 

[YSCCC]

Just because someone wants something, doesn't mean it is in their budget. Exactly.

It isn't completely about budget also, as good as the FE cooler is, with the heat dumping into your case, you are literally cooking your CPU, RAM and VRM at the same time, a hard side effect to take for a GPU costing an arm and a leg plus a kidney

 

[Gaidax]

At $2000+, the 5090 doesn't make much sense either.

At least it's actually a decent amount faster than the predecessor and comes with upgraded VRAM and almost double the bandwidth.

At least it feels like you're getting somewhere for the $$.