The best argument for grabbing a 5080 right now, if you can find one at $999 in the first place, is that the only cards that come close to its performance are either way more expensive than they're supposed to be (the 4080 Super) or not cheap enough to justify the Nvidia-specific features you give up (AMD's Radeon 7900 XTX).

But then, neither is it a blood-boiler like the RTX 4080, nor a largely aspirational show-off piece like the RTX 5090. By maintaining the 4080 Super’s course correction on price while tooling up on compelling DLSS 4 improvements,

It’s disappointing to see Nvidia has stuck with 16GB of VRAM on the RTX 5080. AMD’s RX 7900 XTX offers 24GB, and while the RTX 5080 delivers better performance for now, it may well hit video memory limits in 4K gaming in the future.

We later learned it uses DLSS 4’s AI-powered multi frame generation to achieve that in supported titles, but that’s a welcome compromise for those who can’t find room in their budget for the beefier 4K-ready GPUs that are on sale right now — including the $999.

Get your hands on the new Blackwell GPU with our guide on where to find the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 in stock near you.