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

DLSS Multi Frame Generation

Next, we give a few examples of the sort of frame rates – and latency numbers – you can expect when using Multi Frame Generation (MFG) with the RTX 5080. This isn't going to be as complete an analysis as per our RTX 5090 review, so please do check out that content if you are interested.

What we can see, however, is very similar overall behaviour when cycling through the various DLSS modes. Naturally, with all settings cranked to the max in Alan Wake 2, performance is very low when using DLAA, and using Super resolution Performance mode alone (with no MFG) brings us from 17fps up to 46fps, alongside a substantial decrease to latency. Then using the 2X, 3X and 4X modes for mfg further boosts frame rates, though latency does increase slightly with each mode.

The same can also be observed in Cyberpunk 2077 – good luck using path tracing without any form of upscaling, and even with Super Resolution alone, 54FPS isn't super smooth. MFG does what it's designed to do and boosts frame rate significantly, up to 169fps when using its 4X mode, though latency does increase by just under 16ms compared to not using MFG at all, so it is something to bear in mind.

Hogwarts Legacy is that bit easier to run – even with ray tracing maxed out – and as such, we see even higher frame rates when using MFG. We're looking at an average of 142fps when only using Super Resolution Performance mode, but enabling MFG 4X whacks that up to 326fps. Latency is also lower across the board here, though it is still 40% higher using MFG 4X compared to only using Super Resolution.

Performance versus RTX 4080 Super

We also re-tested the RTX 4080 Super in these games, being an Ada GPU it is limited to using ‘Frame Generation' instead of ‘Multi Frame Generation', i.e. the insertion of one AI-generated frame rather than up to three on the RTX 50 series. As such, that means you can get significantly higher frame rates with the 5080, and this is what was behind Nvidia's claims of ‘2X' the performance of the 4080. Obviously this is dependent on the game supporting Frame Gen, and these aren’t the raw performance increases we saw earlier in the review, but it’s worth pointing out if MFG is a feature you might value.

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