RTX 5080 vs RTX 4090 specs comparison – how do they compare?

The RTX 5080, alongside three other RTX 50-series cards, was finally announced during CES 2025, and is set for release later this month . Ever since the card was first announced, many have been wondering how it stacks up against other offerings, especially from Nvidia itself. One of the most obvious comparisons has to be how it fairs against the flagship model of the 40-series, the RTX 4090, which is currently the most powerful gaming GPU available in the market for 4K gaming.

While real-world benchmarks of the RTX 5080 are not here yet, Nvidia has shared details about its specifications. These give us something to work with while we wait to get hands on with the new card, and can give us a glimpse at how these two GPUs compare on paper.

We’ll be updating this article with real-world performance comparisons after we’ve completed our review. However, due to strict embargos, we and many others won’t be able to reveal the benchmarks for a few more weeks, so stay tuned for more information.

RTX 5080 vs RTX 4090 specs comparison

While the RTX 5080 is a high-end model in the RTX 50-series lineup, the RTX 4090 is the flagship GPU of the 40-series. So, in terms of specs, the 4090 takes the lead in almost everything, especially the VRAM and core count.

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.

Features

Nvidia has always focused on improving its AI models and features, and it showcased its latest technology during CES 2025 – DLSS 4. DLSS is something most PC enthusiasts are familiar with, but for those who don’t know, it is an upscaling technology that uses the power of artificial intelligence to boost FPS in games.

At the moment, RTX 40-series users have DLSS 3.5, but they’ll be able to use DLSS 4 once it gets released at the end of this month with the launch of the RTX 5090 and 5080. However, even though they’ll be able to enjoy the newest upscaling technology from Nvidia, they won’t have access to Multi Frame Generation, a feature that will be exclusive to RTX 50-series cards.

Multi Frame Generation is what DLSS 4 is all about, and it is something that will help the 50-series GPUs gain a significant advantage over the 40-series cards. Nvidia shared a video on their YouTube channel to show the difference between DLSS versions, and we were blown away by how amazing DLSS 4 is.

In Cyberpunk 2077, without DLSS, they were getting only 27 FPS. With the help of DLSS 2, they were able to increase it to 71 FPS, which later jumped to 142 FPS with DLSS 3.5, the current version being used. Then we saw DLSS 4, which boosted the number by another 101 FPS, and took it to 243. In other words, it offered double the performance compared to DLSS 3.5.

Nvidia currently claims that the RTX 5070 will offer performance similar to the RTX 4090 for just $549. While this sounds too good to be true, users will most likely be able to achieve this with the help of DLSS 4. So, when it comes to performance, the RTX 5080 should be able to deliver much better performance than the 4090 in games, even though it isn’t as powerful as the flagship GPU in terms of specifications.

Without DLSS, it might not be able to keep up, but once it’s turned on, it will leave the RTX 4090 behind with a big margin – that is if Nvidia’s claims turn out to be accurate and DLSS 4 does indeed transform the cards into a beast.

Another impressive feature revealed during CES 2025 was Reflex 2, a much better and more advanced version of Reflex 1. While DLSS boosts FPS in games, Reflex helps reduce the overall latency, which makes the gameplay smoother and lag-free. Reflex 2 will now work with a feature called Frame Warp, and together, they’ll help significantly reduce the latency in games.

The image below shows how Reflex 1 took the latency to 27 from 56 ms in The Finals. Nvidia then used Reflex 2, which slashed it by half and took the latency down to only 14 ms, which is pretty impressive. Such features are useful for competitive gamers, who can’t afford to face issues such as lag, ghosting, and stuttering.

RTX 5080 vs RTX 4090 – price comparison

Nvidia confirmed that the RTX 5080 will launch with a price tag of $999. But do keep in mind that this price is for the base model. Third-party variants will most likely have a price tag of somewhere between $1200 to $1250.

The RTX 4090, on the other hand, had an MSRP of $1,599. However, these days, you can find it for anywhere between $2000 to $2500. But after the launch of the RTX 50-series cards at the end of this month, we’re expecting its price to drop.

Early impressions

Based on the specifications shared by Nvidia, the RTX 5080 will be a powerful card that will be able to deliver a true 4K gaming experience. It will be superior to its predecessor in most ways with a better memory type, more CUDA cores, and a new architecture. In terms of specifications, it can not compete with the RTX 4090. The flagship GPU will beat the 5080 in raw performance.

However, the RTX 5080 will have a special weapon to use – Multi Frame Generation in DLSS 4. This technology will help it deliver significantly higher FPS in games. But it’s a bit disappointing to see that Nvidia has introduced the same amount of VRAM as the 4080, as we were expecting to see at least 20GB.

In any case, after the card launches and we get our hands on it, we’ll make sure to update this guide with our review and real-world benchmarks.