The second of Nvidia's RTX Blackwell series of graphics cards, the RTX 5080, was revealed at the Nvidia CES 2025 keynote, alongside the RTX 5090, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070.
With the promise of twice the performance of the RTX 4080 and a price that matches the RTX 4080 Super, the second-string RTX Blackwell GPU looks pretty tasty.
In real terms, however, it's the might of DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation that is going to be held up as the feature which gives it that double RTX 4080 gaming performance, and only then in the games which support it.
Release date?
The RTX 5080 release date puts it alongside the RTX 5090 with both cards launching on the same day, January 30, 2025. Like the RTX 5090 I would expect we'll see AIB cards being released on January 31, with traditionally chonky shrouds.
Specs?
This has been the most controversial thing about the rumoured specs; the GPU make up of the RTX 5080. The RTX 5080 specs look remarkably like those of the RTX 4080, and you've got to be hoping that Blackwell architecture is able to deliver something special—and not just DLSS 4—when it comes to gaming frame rates, because this doesn't look special. Especially the now-confimred specs of the 256-bit bus and just 16 GB VRAM.
Price?
The original RTX 4080 launched at a ludicrous $1,200. A price so ludicrous, in fact, that I had to just go look it up again to make sure I was remembering it right. That changed with the RTX 4080 Super after significant backlash over the first card's pricing, and that came out at $999. Thankfully Nvidia hasn't gone overboard on the pricing of the RTX 5080 and has stuck with the $999 price point.