The RTX is still worth hanging on to for gaming. In addition, a recent analysis concluded in other tasks it was still 30% faster than the 5080. If anything was going to retain its value, it will be this.
Other considerations:
Memory
First, let’s discuss the most important feature: the VRAM. The RTX 5080 comes packed with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, while the RTX 4090 offers 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM. In other words, the RTX 5080 is nowhere near the flagship GPU in terms of VRAM.
It does, however, offer a better and faster memory type, GDDR7, which should help it deliver better performance than cards that have 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM. However, 4090 has almost 8GB more, so 5080 won’t be able to keep up with it even with the better memory type and newer
architecture. In demanding games that consume a lot of memory, especially at 4K, you’ll be better off with a card like the 4090.
However, with the RTX 5080, we were hoping to see a VRAM upgrade over the 4080, which also offers 16GB of VRAM. This was a bit disappointing considering its competitor, AMD, is
introducing this much VRAM in its mid-range options, whereas the RTX 5080 is a high-end model. Even Intel seems to be going in the right direction, as their budget GPUs
now offer 10 and 12GB VRAM. For the RTX 5080, we expected at least 20GB of VRAM.
Cores
When it comes to the CUDA cores, the RTX 5080 offers 10,752 cores, while the 4090 once again takes the lead with 16,384 cores. This is a difference of 5,632 cores, which is massive.
For those who don’t know, CUDA cores are responsible for processing tasks simultaneously. The more cores a GPU has, the better it will perform in resource-hungry tasks. Even though the RTX 5080 has 4th-generation Ray Tracing cores and 5th-generation Tensor cores, the difference of 5,632 cores won’t allow it to compete with the 4090 in terms of raw performance. While these cores will help it perform significantly better than its predecessor, it just won’t be able to keep up with the flagship GPU.
Clock speeds
As far as the clock speeds are concerned, the RTX 5080 operates at a base frequency of 2.30 GHz and offers a boost frequency of 2.62 GHz. On the other hand, the RTX 4090 has a base clock of 2.23 GHz and a boost clock of 2.52 GHz.
Now, after reading this, you may think that the 5080 is a bit faster than the 4090 in terms of clock speeds. While higher clock speeds do mean that the 5080 can process more data per cycle, it still won’t be able to match the 4090’s performance due to the difference of 5,632 cores between them. So, having slightly higher clock speeds won’t give the 5080 an advantage over the 4090 in any way.
We compared RTX 5080 vs RTX 4090 to find out which GPU has better performance in benchmarks, games, and apps.
nanoreview.net