ROG gives its Astral RTX 5080 the same power as an RTX 4090 in new BIOS update
Table of Contents
As one of the more staple cards from the RTX 50 series release, the RTX 5080 definitely cuts down on the flagship’s sky-high price while still providing a great deal of the Blackwell architecture. Yet clearly, ROG didn’t think the base specs were enough for the graphics card.
Starting with 360W total graphics power (TGP), the ROG Astral increases that power by a whopping 90W to 450W. That BIOS update for the ROG Astral 5080 increases the TGP by 22% and puts it on par with the RTX 4090’s graphics power, which sat at the top of the Ada series of GPUs. Yet, it is still a good deal behind the RTX 5090, which has an astounding 575W.
- GPU: GB203
- CUDA Cores: 10,752
- VRAM: 16GB GDDR7
- Memory Bus Width: 256 bit
- Base Clock Speed: 2,295 MHz
- Boost Clock Speed: 2,790 MHz
ROG Astral VBIOS update
Even with the power being able to go around the original TGP, this VBIOS update should significantly improve general usage without the need for overclocking. It should allow the card to use more power and reach even higher clock rates to squeeze out even more performance from it. However, you’ll want to be sure to have a power supply good enough to provide the power needed by the card.
It is a fairly simple process, too. If you are looking to update your GPU’s VBIOS, just download the file. It gives you an exe file you can run and should do the job itself. That way you can get even performance from your expensive top-end card to get even more value from it.
Clearly, ROG has a lot of headroom to play with compared to being limited by the power allowed to the board. As we saw in our review of the Astral, pushing the temps up with Furmark 2, it only ever peaked at 64°C on memory and 62°C on the chip. So it’s unlikely to even thermal throttle with the improved TGP, but it will definitely get a lot hotter now.
About the Author