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RTX 5080 vs RTX 3080 specs and performance comparison – what’s the difference?

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RTX 5080 vs RTX 3080 specs and performance comparison – what’s the difference?
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The RTX 5080 and 5090, two of the four cards announced during CES 2025, have finally launched. When new cards are announced, everyone starts wondering how they compare against other options in the market, including some old GPUs like the RTX 3080, which was released back in 2020.

Now, with the RTX 5080 reviews live and the RTX 3080 review, we can see the card’s true performance and how much improvement it offers over the RTX 3080. With a variety of strong improvements and new features to utilize, it has a lot to offer.

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So here’s how the RTX 5080 and RTX 3080 stack up against each other.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition

Nvidia RTX 5080 FE left profile, Image by PCGuide

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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founder’s Edition

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RTX 5080 vs RTX 3080 specs comparison

SpecificationsRTX 5080RTX 3080 
Cores107528,704
Base clock speed2.30 GHz1.44 GHz
Boost clock speed2.62 GHz1.71 GHz
Memory 16 GB GDDR710 GB GDDR6X
Memory interface 256-bit256-bit
Memory clock30 Gbps19 Gbps
Bandwidth960.0 GB/s760.3 GB/s
TDP360W320W
Power connector12V-2×612V-2×6
Measurements 304 mm x 137 mm x 40 mm285 mm x 112 mm x 40 mm
Release dateJan 2025September 2020

As you can see in the table above, the RTX 5080 offers significant improvements over the RTX 3080. In fact, it even offers specs better than its predecessor, the RTX 4080.

Memory

VRAM is one of the most important features of a GPU. The higher the VRAM of your GPU, the more data it can store. The RTX 5080 offers 16 GB of GDDR7 VRAM with a memory interface of 256-bit. On the other hand, the RTX 3080 has 10 GB of GDDR6X memory and the same memory interface.

So, the RTX 5080 offers 6GB more VRAM than the 3080. On top of that, it also has a better and faster memory type. However, while this looks impressive when compared to the 3080, it is the same as the 4080, only that the memory type is better. 

With the RTX 5080 we hoped to see at least 20 GB VRAM. Video games are getting demanding, and they now require more VRAM for smooth gameplay. Both AMD and Intel seem to understand this, as their budget and mid-range GPUs are now offering 10 to 16 GB VRAM. High-end cards, like the 5080, should come packed with at least 20 GB VRAM, if not higher. 

Cores

To handle multiple tasks simultaneously without any sort of delays or issues, a GPU needs to have a high core count. Just as you'd expect from a high-end card, the RTX 5080 has 10,752 CUDA cores. On the other hand, the RTX 3080 has 8,704 cores, which is still a great number considering the card is over four years old.

So, on paper, there's a difference of 2,048 cores between them, which means the 5080 will be able to deliver much better performance. Sure, the difference between the two isn't as massive as the 5090 and 4090, which is more than 5,000 cores, but it is still significant.

The Blackwell architecture (Image source: Nvidia)

Clock speeds

The RTX 5080 operates at a base speed of 2.30 GHz, but it can be boosted up to 2.62 GHz. On the other hand, the RTX 3080 has a base clock speed of 1.44 GHz and a boost clock speed of 1.71 GHz. Such low speeds are rare in GPUs these days, but again, the 3080 is over four years old.

Clock speeds basically determine how fast the cores of a GPU are and how much data the GPU can process per second. Higher clock speeds mean the 5080 will execute more tasks than the 3080 in one second. Even if its clock speeds were lower than the 3080, the 5080 would still beat it due to the massive difference of over 2,000 cores. 

Performance

The RTX 3080 is a four-year-old card, but it’s still considered a solid card for 4K gaming. We tested it in several games to get an idea about how well it holds its ground today.

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the RTX 3080 achieved 163 FPS at 1080p, 137 FPS at 1440p, and 84 FPS at 4K. After turning on RT to improve the visuals, we still got around 55 FPS at 4K. In comparison, the RTX 5080 got an average of 345, 251, 138, and 91FPS respectively. This is an uplift of 72% at 1080p, 59% at 1440p, 49% at 4k, and 49% in 4K RT, with the caveat that these weren’t done on the same platform and system, so they might not be directly comparable but should give you a good idea of the disparity.

In Doom Eternal, the 3080 achieved an average FPS of 302 at 1080, 241 at 1440p, and 146 at 4k. While enabling ray tracing, it averages 226, 171, and 99, respectively. The 5080 boosts that framerate across the board, as it gains 51% at 1080p (512fps), 55% at 1440p (426fps), 57% at 4k (265fps), 45% in 1080p ray tracing (358fps), 53% in 1440p ray tracing (295fps), and 63% in 4k ray tracing (191fps).

We also had the data of 3DMark and the scores achieved by both. The 3080 achieves 10,823 in Fire Strike Ultra, 8,438 in Time Spy Extreme, and 10,993 in Port Royal. This means the 5080 gains 66% (21,568), 62% (16,069), and 67% (22,113), respectively, in the suit of benchmarks.

You can also expect other improvements across the board from the Blackwell generation. The 5080 improves on the NVENC encoding capabilities and quickens time taken by many seconds compared to the 4080 and with a higher average FPS. So it also improves on the 3080’s offering as that has the 7th gen encoder compared to the 9th gen on the 5080.

There are many AI improvements, too, as we found in the Geekbench AI benchmark on the 5080. The card achieved over 36,000 in single precision, 60,900 in half-precision, and nearly 28,000 in quantized scores. Something that it takes advantage of to bring in DLSS 4 and LLM capabilities to the consumer card.

Sizing

When the RTX 50-series was announced, many feared that Nvidia would once again increase the size of its cards, as it has done with each generation. However, thankfully, Nvidia has ended this trend with the new series, as the cards are nearly the same size as the RTX 40-series lineup.

The RTX 3080 measures 285 mm × 112 mm × 40 mm (L×W×H), while the RTX 5080 measures 304 mm × 137 mm × 40 mm, almost identical to the RTX 4080. However, while the RTX 5080 is larger than the 3080 in length and width, both cards share the same height. This is because, instead of a 3-slot design, Nvidia opted for a 2-slot design for the RTX 5080. As a result, it will take up the same space on the motherboard as the 3080 even with an increased power requirement.

Nvidia RTX 5080 FE GPU and box, Image by PCGuide
Nvidia RTX 5080 FE GPU and box, Image by PCGuide

Features

Nvidia has an upscaling technology called DLSS, which is one of the reasons why many people opt for their GPUs. This technology can help improve the number of frames you're getting in a game. In short, it can help transform a weak card into something better.

The company is always focusing on improving this upscaling technology and during CES 2025, they showcased the newest version: DLSS 4. This new version promises to offer significant upgrades over DLSS 3.5, which RTX users are currently using.

Nvidia currently claims that the RTX 5070 will be able to deliver better performance than the RTX 4090. While this won't be possible with what the card packs in terms of specifications, we believe that it will be able to achieve this by using a new feature in DLSS 4 called Multi Frame Generation. This is exclusive to RTX 50-series cards and will render three additional frames on top of the traditionally rendered one. 

So, while the RTX 5080 already has a significant performance advantage over the 3080 thanks to more VRAM, cores, better clock speeds, and a brand-new architecture, DLSS 4 will put it in a league of its own.

As we found in our testing of the technology, it does offer quite a significant boost. As in Cyberpunk, in ray tracing overdrive, the GPU was only capable of 19FPS, but using 2x MFG and DLSS performance, it jumps to 103FPS. With the 4x going all the way up to 183. Whereas the RTX 3080 would be stuck with using DLSS performance that only gives the 5080 58FPS in our tests.

Aside from DLSS 4, Nvidia also announced the latest version of Reflex. For those who don't know, while DLSS is an upscaling technology meant to improve the frames people are getting in games, Reflex reduces latency to make the gameplay smoother and lag-free. 

In the image below, you can see how Nvidia was getting 56 ms in The Finals without Reflex enabled, which dropped down to 27 ms after the feature was turned on. But with the new Reflex 2, the latency was reduced to only 14 ms, something that will leave a lot of fans impressed, especially those who are into competitive gaming and can not afford to face issues such as lag and stuttering. The technology will be able to achieve these results by relying on the latest mouse input information, and it will also work together with another feature called Frame Wrap.

Image source: Nvidia

RTX 5080 vs RTX 3080 – price comparison

The RTX 5080 will be released for $999 as per Nvidia. This price will be for the base model, so you can expect the third-party variants to be priced somewhere between $1,000 to $1,250.

On the other hand, the RTX 3080 was launched with an MSRP for $699. These days, you can get it for anywhere between $500 and $700, depending on the model.

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Early impressions

The RTX 5080 offers significant upgrades over the RTX 3080, but this is something that we already expected. It has much more VRAM, higher number of cores, better clock speeds, and a brand-new architecture. On top of that, with DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation and Reflex 2, the RTX 5080 is in a league of its own and deliver the true 4K gaming experience.

On the other hand, the RTX 3080 is still a solid card, and I’ve been using it for over two years. So far, I haven’t faced any problems related to performance. However, modern games are now getting more demanding, and you’ll need a better card for smooth performance. But we’re a bit disappointed to see only 16 GB of VRAM in the 5080, as high-end cards should have at least 20 GB VRAM these days.

About the Author

Abdul is a tech writer and Editor for PC Guide, specializing in all things tech, gaming, and hardware.