Nvidia has made a major announcement at Gamescom 2025, and it’s exciting news for cloud gamers. The company revealed that the RTX 5080, one of the most powerful GPUs in the new RTX 50-series, is finally coming to GeForce NOW Ultimate. This means users can enjoy top-tier gaming performance, all from the cloud, without needing a high-end PC of their own. Handheld framerates are also being improved.

GeForce NOW is Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. Instead of installing games on your computer, you stream them from Nvidia’s servers – what it calls ‘Superpods’. It’s like watching Netflix, but for games. You can play your own PC games from platforms like Steam or Epic Games Store on almost any device, even a Chromebook or smartphone, as long as you have a good internet connection.

RTX 5080-level performance for GeForce Now Ultimate members

The Ultimate Plan is the highest tier available. It gives players access to powerful virtual gaming rigs with ultra-fast frame rates and high resolutions. Until now, the RTX 4080 was the top GPU used for these virtual machines. But with the RTX 5080 upgrade, things are getting even better.

The RTX 5080 is one of Nvidia’s latest and most advanced GPUs. At Gamescom, Nvidia showed performance benchmarks that highlight just how much of an upgrade this card is. When compared to the RTX 4080 in GeForce NOW, the 5080 delivers up to 2.8x faster performance. In games like DOOM: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Dune: Awakening, Cyberpunk 2077, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, it delivers significantly better performance.

All tests were run at 4K resolution, with maximum settings turned on. DLSS was set to Balanced mode, with DLSS Frame Generation enabled – 4x (Multi Frame Generation) on the RTX 5080 and 2x on the RTX 4080; MFG is exclusive to the 50 series cards.

The best part is that Nvidia isn’t charging any extra for this upgrade. If you’re already on the Ultimate Plan, you’ll start getting access to RTX 5080 performance as soon as the update rolls out. However, it is important to note that not all games will support the RTX 5080 on day one. Only select titles will be available at first, but Nvidia says more games will be added weekly.

• Basic Rig: Free (with ads)
• Performance: GeForce RTX, $9.99/month
• Ultimate: GeForce RTX 4080 / RTX 5080 for select games, $19.99 a month

‘Persistent cloud storage’ add-ons are also available for purchase, costing up to $7.99 for 1TB. This is concerning the new Install-to-Play feature, which downloads games to super-fast NVMmesh cloud storage. Install-to-Play is allowing Nvidia to double support for Steam’s game library and giving more devs the chance to opt in.

About the Author

Abdul Haddi

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