Is Nvidia's RTX 5080 really faster than the RTX 4090? See how this new card performs and whether it's worth upgrading from older models

The best argument for grabbing a 5080 right now, if you can find one at $999 in the first place, is that the only cards that come close to its performance are either way more expensive than they're supposed to be (the 4080 Super) or not cheap enough to justify the Nvidia-specific features you give up (AMD's Radeon 7900 XTX).

Nvidia followed up the most powerful GPU it’s ever made, the RTX 5090, with this — the RTX 5080. It’s half the price, and it offers around 70% of the performance. That should be a good thing, but the RTX 5080 falls short when compared to Nvidia’s last-gen offerings that still rank among the best graphics cards.

In terms of gaming performance, the NVIDIA RTX 5080 is only slightly ahead of the 4080 Super. In a third of modern games, you won't be able to play at

I spent a week extensively testing the RTX 5080, and overall it's the best premium graphics card for most people you can get right now.

It’s disappointing to see Nvidia has stuck with 16GB of VRAM on the RTX 5080. AMD’s RX 7900 XTX offers 24GB, and while the RTX 5080 delivers better performance for now, it may well hit video memory limits in 4K gaming in the future.

A leaked 3DMark benchmark suggests that the Nvidia RTX 5080 is 15% faster than the RTX 4080 Super, but 11% slower than the RTX 4090.

The RTX 5080 Founders Edition at $999 makes far more sense for enthusiasts targeting max-setting gaming and ultra-HD resolutions if you can find it at MSRP.

Digital Foundry tests the GeForce RTX 5080. On this page: we introduce our test system, benchmarking methodology and initial impressions.

Nvidia's new GPU hardware is likely to sell out quickly. Plus it's expensive! If you want to experience true next-gen PC gaming, here are five desktops that'll you save cash, too.