Nvidia RTX 5080 Review: Efficiency Gains, Performance Letdown

1. Introduction2. Meet the RTX 5080 Founders Edition3. Testing Methodology4. Alan Wake II5. Black Myth: Wukong6. Cyberpunk 20777. Final Fantasy XVI8. Forza Horizon 59. Ghost of Tsushima10. Horizon Forbidden West11. The Last of Us Part 112. A Plague Tale: Requiem13. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 214. Starfield15. Total War: Warhammer III16. Performance Summary (12-Game Average)17. Cost Per Frame Analysis18. Ray Tracing: Alan Wake II19. Ray Tracing: Black Myth: Wukong20. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 207721. Ray Tracing: F1 2422. Ray Tracing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart23. Ray Tracing: Returnal24. Ray Tracing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider25. Ray Tracing: Star Wars Outlaws26. Ray Tracing Performance Summary27. DLSS Testing28. AI & Productivity Benchmarks29. Clock Speed30. GPU Temperatures31. Acoustics32. Power Draw: 1080p33. Power Draw: 1440p34. Power Draw: 2160p (4K)35. Performance per Watt: 1080p36. Performance per Watt: 1440p37. Performance per Watt: 2160p (4K)38. Total System Power Draw39. Closing Thoughts40. View All Pages

Here we present frame rate figures for each graphics card, averaged across all 12 games on test today. These figures can disguise significant variations in performance from game to game, but provide a useful overview of the sort of performance you can expect at each resolution tested.

Overall then, across the 12 games tested, at 1440p the RTX 5080 delivered an average frame rate of 110fps, and that makes it 9% faster than the RTX 4080 Super. It's also just 7% faster than the RX 7900 XTX, while it's 15% and 30% slower than the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090, respectively.

At 4K the gains over the 4080 Super do get slightly wider, with the 5080 now 13% faster on average, while it's 8% ahead of the 7900 XTX. It still lags behind the RTX 4090 by 15%, and it's now 34% slower than the RTX 5090.  For one final comparison though, one I've not focused on today is the matchup against the RTX 3080 Ti, which launched at £1049 back in mid-2021; the RTX 5080 comes in 51% faster on average at 4K.

Relative performance versus the RTX 4080 Super

Just to breakdown the relative rasterisation performance versus the 4080 Super, at 1440p we saw gains between 5% up to 14%.

As mentioned, the 5080 can stretch its legs somewhat at 4K, where it proved to be 8-23% faster than the 4080 Super, depending on the exact game – four of twelve titles tested showed less than a 10% difference, mind.

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