This January we’re finally going to be getting our hands on two of the most highly anticipated GPUs to date – the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. Announced at CES 2025 in Nvidia’s fantastic keynote presentation, these two cards are set to blow the 40-series out of the water – so we’re curious to see how they stack up against each other, at least on paper.
We’ll be testing both of these cards when they release, so stay tuned as we’ll be updating this article with real-world performance differences, once we’ve reviewed them in our testing lab.
For now, let’s see how these two compare with the information that’s available so far.
Spec comparison
We’ve listed their specifications below to see the hardware difference between the two processors.
| Specifications | RTX 5090 | RTX 5080 |
| Cores | 21760 | 10752 |
| Base clock speed | 2.01 GHz | 2.30 GHz |
| Boost clock speed | 2.41 GHz | 2.62 GHz |
| Memory | 32GB GDDR7 | 16GB GDDR7 |
| Memory interface | 512-bit | 256-bit |
| Bandwidth | 1.79 TB/s | 960.0 GB/s |
| TDP | 575W | 360W |
The RTX 5090 has twice the VRAM and memory interface connection as the RTX 5080, and there is a massive difference between the cores as well. We’ll explore these differences individually to understand what they mean for their performance.
Memory
The RTX 5090 has 32GB GDDR7 VRAM, while the RTX 5080 has 16GB GDDR7 VRAM. Both of these cards sport the new memory type, but the flagship GPU has double the memory, meaning it should be able to better handle gaming at higher resolutions.
That being said, you should also be able to play games at 4K with the RTX 5080 as the RTX 4080 can also push that but you’ll obviously get more FPS with the 5090 given that is has twice the cores and memory to work with.
Memory interface width
The RTX 5090 has a 512-bit interface which is an improvement from the RTX 4090’s 384-bit connection but the RTX 5080 has the same 256-bit memory interface connection. This means that the connection difference has doubled compared to previous generations, putting the second best GPU from the RTX 50-series lineup in a difficult spot.
A higher bit connection works like a highway with more lanes. The more lanes there are, the more cars (data) can easily travel on it without causing a traffic jam (bottleneck). So, not only does the 5090 have more cores and a higher VRAM, but it is also better equipped to handle resource-intensive tasks.
Cores
The RTX 5090 has 21,760 CUDA cores, while the RTX 5080 has 10,752 CUDA cores. This is a difference of 11,008 CUDA cores, more than what the RTX 4080 Super has. More cores mean better performance, as more computations can be processed per clock cycle, resulting in significantly better efficiency and output.
So, the RTX 5080 is no match for the RTX 5090 in terms of core counts and once again, the difference between the flagship and runner up GPU has increased, giving the RTX 5080 more to prove.
RTX 5090 vs. RTX 5080 – price comparison
The RTX 5090 and 5080 have an MSRP of $1,999 and $999, respectively. This is a $1,000 difference between these cards. If we go back a generation, the RTX 4080 was released with the same MSRP, but the RTX 4090 had a $1,599 price tag. The difference between those cards was $600, so we’ve gone up by $400, but the new cards feature better technologies and GDDR7 memory.
Final word
The RTX 5090 is in a league of its own and not even the RTX 5080 can each it. One can argue that DLSS 4 would bridge the gap between these card but that technology is also available for the RTX 5090 so ultimately the performance delta will remain the same.
That being said, it doesn’t mean the RTX 5080 is a slouch as with DLSS 4 and the new GDDR7 VRAM, it should also deliver solid 4K gaming performance if you’re not keep on spending $1,999 or more than that on a partner card, the 5080 should be an excellent choice for gaming and productivity.
