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

Just like the RTX 5090, the RTX 5080 ships in a compact eco-friendly box.

Inside, a smaller box houses the quick-start guide and triple 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapter.

 

Visually, the RTX 5080 Founders Edition is identical to the RTX 5090. It sports the same industrial design language, with the two large fans part of what Nvidia calls the ‘double flow through' cooler, given the PCB has been moved to the dead centre of the card itself to allow maximum airflow to pass through the heatsink.

Internally, though, we are told there have been a few changes. Gone is the 3D Vapour Chamber of the RTX 5090, and instead the RTX 5080 uses a more traditional heatpipes and baseplate configuration. It has also ditched the liquid metal thermal interface material (TIM), presumably to save on cost.

As per the RTX 5090 though, the 5080 is still just a dual-slot card and it measures 304mm long and 137mm tall.

The front side is home to the GeForce RTX logo, which lights up with a white LED once powered on. We also get a look at the back of the card, and you can even see the outline of the two fans coming through the fin stack – that shows just much how of a focus the ‘flow through' design has been for Nvidia when manufacturing this card, as airflow is almost completely unobstructed.

Power is delivered by a single 12VHPWR, AKA PCIe 5.0, connector, rated for up to 600W.

Video outputs are also upgraded for this generation, with the RTX 5080 offering three DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 connectors and one HDMI 2.1.

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