Our benchmarking system, with parts supplied by ASUS, is built on a ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming WiFi II Motherboard, with the CPU cooled by a ROG Strix LC III 360 AIO Cooler, the ROG Strix Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 OC Edition GPU, powered by the TUF Gaming 1000W Gold White Edition PSU, and seated in a white TUF Gaming GT302 ARGB case. It’s certainly no slouch for games, but with ASUS sending us a TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition graphics card to try out, I now know it could be better…

Supporting a maximum resolution of 7680 x 4320 and coming with 16GB GDDR7 VRAM, it’s capable of up to 2730MHz while in OC mode, which can be slightly adjusted through ASUS GPU Tweak III. You can have up to four monitors connected to it using the two HDMI 2.1B ports and three DisplayPort 2.1b connections. It also supports HDCP 2.3 and comes with a 256-bit memory interface, with speeds up to 30Gbps, and it provides 1858 TOPs for AI processes, boosting the overall performance.

Being part of the TUF Gaming range, the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition is built to be reliable. Power is delivered through certified military-grade TUF chokes and Mosfets, and TUF 5K black metallic capacitors increase temperature tolerance by just over 50%. The PCB has a coating that helps prevent shorts caused by moisture, dust, and other debris, and the ASUS GPU guard protects the GPU – a system that helps maintain connection with the PCB should the card experience some flex.

Three Axial-Tech dual-ball bearing fans push air through a vented exoskeleton and a large radiator connected to the system by a large vapour chamber and a jumbo-sized heatsink featuring the ASUS MaxContact Design. This greatly increases the contact area by 5% compared to the usual design, which can improve temperature transfer by up to 2 Celsius. The fans shut down for quiet operation while the GPU is below 50 Celsius, spooling up as required once it exceeds 55 Celsius, and to keep the airflow consistent and smooth, the middle fan spins in the opposite direction to the two outer fans.

With the somewhat techy stuff out of the way, I’m sure you’re keen to hear how it performs. Using Cyberpunk 2077 as the test, I set the resolution to 4K, the graphics settings as the highest I could, and enabled Ray Tracing. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition had a 60% performance increase with the RTX 4070 OC sitting at 25FPS, but the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition hovering with an average of 40 FPS.

The difference was slightly less when I reduced the resolution to 2K, with the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition having a 40% performance advantage over the RTX 4070 OC but gaining some ground again when lowering the resolution to Full High-Definition. Benchmark testing reflected similar results, with User Benchmark showing anywhere between a 50% and 70% performance increase when testing the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition. It is, however, worth noting that these increases are primarily provided by DLSS and AI-generated filler-frames.

As much as I would have liked to have compared it to one of the RTX 4080 cards, I don’t have access to them at this stage, so I did a bit of research, and while the results suggest that there is a performance increase, it may not be worth upgrading. The other thing to remember is that the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition is very power-hungry. They recommend a minimum 850W power supply for the system, whereas the RTX 4080 recommends 750W, and the ROG Strix Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 OC Edition GPU in our benchmark system drops to 650W.

So it is worth it? Well, that depends on what you have already. If you’ve got a bigger power supply already and you’re upgrading from something like or below an RTX 4070 OC, then I would say yes. The difference in performance speaks for itself, but the gains when you compare it to an RTX 4080 are only slightly better, and if you’re using one of the RTX 4090 cards, then I wouldn’t bother, as they’re comparable.

If you’ve spent the last few years looking to upgrade your GPU and were considering an RTX 4080 or higher, then the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition is a great option. I was able to play games with a significant boost to framerates compared to the ROG Strix Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 OC Edition GPU we have in our benchmarking system. Still, I was lucky to already have a 1000W power supply that could handle a power-hungry monster.

Written by: Mathew Lindner