RTX 5080 Founders Edition Review: A Powerful 4K Gaming Option

Technology News

RTX 5080 Founders Edition Review: A Powerful 4K Gaming Option
RTX 5080Founders Edition4K Gaming
  • 📰 WIRED
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 225 sec. here
  • 12 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 117%
  • Publisher: 51%

The RTX 5080 Founders Edition is a powerful graphics card that offers impressive 4K gaming performance and the latest AI-powered gaming enhancements. The review explores its performance in various games, comparing it to the more expensive RTX 5090 and discussing its power consumption and availability.

The RTX 5080 is the graphics card that everyone is talking about. It boasts extreme 4K gaming, the latest in AI-powered gaming enhancements, and a power draw to match. I can’t blame you for not wanting to spend $2,000 on a GPU; that’s enough to build a midrange gaming PC on its own. At just $1,000 for the RTX 5080 Founders Edition , this still-expensive step-down card will be the model that more people seriously consider, even if it's still a splurge.

It's a better choice from a performance perspective, meeting people where they already are in terms of monitor resolution, game choice, and existing power supplies. But how does it fare against the more expensive card, and how does it handle some of the more popular and evergreen games? Well enough to my eyes. If you're and are looking for a high-end video card to match, this might be exactly what you're looking for—if you can find one for sale.of the RTX 5080 is identical to its more powerful counterpart, with a true two slot design that should fit in most cases very comfortably. I really appreciate the size reduction overall, and I hope AIC cards follow suit.Where the RTX 5090 draws an immense 575 watts, the 5080 only asks for 360 watts with the same new power connector. Like the RTX 5090 FE, the RTX 5080 includes an adapter, and I imagine most partner cards will as well. That means a lower overall system power requirement, with Nvidia recommending just 850 watts for the Founders Edition. I expect this will be an easier requirement for existing rigs to meet without needing to buy a newNvidia introduced a new version of its AI-powered enhancement tools for the RTX 50 Series. These notably add support for multi-frame generation, which uses AI to generate up to three frames between. If you’re interested in learning more about the effects of using this tech on image quality, make sure to check out the RTX 5090 review. The short version is that multi-frame generation can produce minor artifacts, particularly in areas where two objects at different depths overlap, such as looking through a fence. These are hard to spot across a whole screen though, and the higher frame rate makes the gaming experience much smoother, so the frames are onscreen less time.While it isn’t perfect, I’m impressed that the RTX 5080 is able to maintain a relatively smooth 60 frames per second while running at 4K, even without having to turn on multi-frame generation. I’m not averse to using the feature, as it does a great job providing extra smoothness with minimal artifacts, but I’d rather just use the card’s natural horsepower when possible.Unsurprisingly, the RTX 5080 has trouble keeping up with path tracing, the most demanding and graphically intensive form of ray tracing. Fortunately, you can break the 60-fps mark by just turning on a single AI-generated frame, which should have a minimal effect on the overall visual quality. I do appreciate the balance here of fine-tuning settings to get close, or turning on frame generation for a big jump in FPS, then comparing the outcomes on a per-game basis.The RTX 5090 takes a big lead over the RTX 5080 here, but whether that extra performance is worth it will depend on your existing rig. The RTX 5090 needs a 1,000-watt or higher PSU, and it really benefits fromWhere the RTX 5090 review focused on the top end of performance, I want to zoom in here on games that are less graphically demanding but more commonly played. I cranked the graphics up to Ultra wherever I could, because that’s just what you do with a new GPU. For this first round I used native resolution, but I’ll discuss supersampling as well.These are the kind of numbers I’m excited to see as a daily gamer. These games are meat and potatoes for a lot of folks, and especially at 1440p or lower, you won’t need to tweak much to get them running smoothly. If you’re playing at 1080p and 120 Hz or lower, I recommend supersampling, which lets you render games at 4K and then display them at your monitor’s native resolution. Runningat 1080p, for example, only used a portion of the GPU’s power. While using Ultra Super-Sampling, the frame rate dropped, but the image quality was much better, and the GPU was running at its full potential.can still demand a lot from your GPU, particularly with the updated ray-tracing models. If you can run it smoothly, it gives the game an incredible boost from what you’re used to, letting light shine through windows and bounce off different textured surfaces.early in the morning on January 28, just two days before launch, Nvidia warned buyers of limited availability for the 50 Series cards. “We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen. Nvidia & our partners are shipping more stock to retail every day to help get GPUs into the hands of gamers.”If previous releases are any indication, the Founders Editions may be even harder to come by than their AIC counterpart

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

WIRED /  🏆 555. in US

RTX 5080 Founders Edition 4K Gaming AI Enhancement Nvidia Ray Tracing Performance Review

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

What power supply do you need for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080?What power supply do you need for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080?Here's what kind of PSU you'll need for Nvidia's top-end RTX 50-series cards.
Read more »

Leaked Benchmarks Suggest Nvidia RTX 5080 Performance Falls Short of ExpectationsLeaked Benchmarks Suggest Nvidia RTX 5080 Performance Falls Short of ExpectationsLeaked benchmarks reveal the performance of Nvidia's upcoming RTX 5080 GPU, suggesting it might not be as powerful as anticipated. Compared to its predecessor, the RTX 4080, the RTX 5080 shows modest performance gains in OpenCL and Vulkan benchmarks. The leaked data also indicates that the RTX 5080 might not surpass the RTX 4090 in performance, breaking the traditional trend of 80-class GPUs outperforming previous generation 90-class GPUs.
Read more »

Nvidia RTX 5080 Packaging Leaked, Early Retail Listings Suggest High PriceNvidia RTX 5080 Packaging Leaked, Early Retail Listings Suggest High PricePackaging for Nvidia's RTX 5080 has leaked ahead of its official announcement at CES 2025, confirming 16GB of GDDR7 memory. An early retail listing suggests a high price for the graphics card.
Read more »

GeForce RTX 5080 Retail Box Leaks, Confirming Specs and Early ReleaseGeForce RTX 5080 Retail Box Leaks, Confirming Specs and Early ReleaseA leaked retail box of Nvidia's upcoming GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card from Gainward reveals key specifications like 16GB of GDDR7 memory. The leak also suggests a possible early release for the RTX 5080, potentially followed by the RTX 5090.
Read more »

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Gets RTX 5080 at CES 2025Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Gets RTX 5080 at CES 2025The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, already a top-tier gaming laptop, is getting a significant upgrade at CES 2025. Asus is cramming an RTX 5080 graphics card into the ultra-thin and light 14-inch chassis, adding just 2mm to the laptop's size.
Read more »

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Launch Expected Soon After CESNvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Launch Expected Soon After CESThe Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 is rumored to be the first card in the RTX 5000 series to launch, potentially a couple of weeks after CES 2023. The RTX 5090 is expected to follow a month later, with the RTX 5070 Ti potentially arriving in April. Pricing details are also anticipated to be revealed during Nvidia's announcement at CES.
Read more »



Render Time: 2025-02-14 19:36:46