Is Nvidia's RTX 5080 Graphics Card Better Than The RTX 4090?

Nvidia's 50-series graphics cards were among the most anticipated tech products of 2025. The company was riding high on the success of the 40-series, which had dominated benchmarks since its release in late 2022. But the story of the GeForce 5000 family of graphics cards got a lot more complicated after launch, and it quickly became clear that this generation's Blackwell architecture was a mixed bag, with RTX 50-series GPUs having a lot of pros and cons.

Nvidia's 50-series GPUs were first beset by stories about melting power connectors. Next was the case of the missing ROPs, where some cards shipped with fewer physical processing components than they should have. Nvidia confirmed that error in a statement, but before the company could recover, there was another fire to put out. Faulty GeForce drivers dangerously caused GPUs not to report their temperature. As if that weren't enough, many in the tech media, including SlashGear, warned gamers to avoid the RTX 5060 due to underwhelming performance and alleged attempts by Nvidia to manipulate reviews.

That leaves us with a big question. In an ideal world, you'd want the second-highest performing GPU of the current generation to rival or outperform the top-tier card from the previous product cycle. So, looking at the raw numbers and putting controversy aside, does the RTX 5080 manage to outperform the RTX 4090? To give a simple answer: No, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 can't muscle past the RTX 4090 in terms of gaming performance. But for those who want to nerd out over the numbers, we'll dig into them below.

In test after test from multiple reviews, the 5080 comes within spitting distance of the previous generation's top performer, but never manages to exceed it. In fact, according to Ars Technica, the 5080's performance is only equivalent to that of an overclocked 4080 Super, to say nothing of the 4090.

That review saw the 4090 output significantly more frames per second than the 5080 in an array of games at 4K, including "Borderlands 3," "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," and "Cyberpunk 2077." It was only once Nvidia's new multi-frame generation was turned on that the 5080 showed a lead over the 4090, which can only generate half as many AI frames. Things didn't get better for the Blackwell GPU in testing from Gamers Nexus. From "Black Myth: Wukong" to "Dragon's Dogma 2," the 4090 stayed handily ahead of the newer graphics card.

We looked at a few more reviews, and the story didn't change. It's clear the RTX 4090 is still a good choice for gaming in 2025. This should be contextualized within the pricing for both graphics cards, though. Prices for the 4090 are above $3,000 at the time of this writing, while the 5080 hovers around $1,600, give or take a few hundred dollars in either direction. However, gaming isn't the only use for a GPU. Might the story be any different if you're hoping to use your GeForce card for AI tasks or video editing? Read on as we explore.

Nvidia has leaned heavily on AI in the marketing of the GeForce RTX 50-series of GPUs. The company rocketed to become the most valuable company in the world on the back of its AI prowess, with tech companies rushing to fill their data centers with Nvidia's enterprise-grade GPUs as the industry goes all on AI. The Blackwell generation promised to be the best yet for AI workloads, so is that where the RTX 5080 can finally beat the RTX 4090?

Unfortunately, no. However, it does get closer than it did with gaming performance. In a multitude of AI tests run by Tom's Hardware, the 4090 still pulled ahead of the 5080. The story repeated for PC Mag, although the outlet found the 5080 within spitting distance of the 4090 in an AI gauntlet including PHI 3.5, Mistral 7B, Llama 3.1, and more, but never outpacing it.

Okay, so what about video editing? At last, the 5080 shows a hint of generational uplift here, with PC Mag clocking it nearly 3,000 points higher than the 4090 in an Adobe Premiere Pro 24 test conducted in PugetBench. The 4090 regained its advantage in Blender and Chaos V-Ray 6, however. Interestingly, Tom's Hardware found that the 5080 performed slightly better in its video tests as well.

Where does all this leave the RTX 5080? Ultimately, unless you care a whole lot about being able to use AI multi-frame generation in your games, the 4090 seems to be holding its crown against the 5080. Only the heir to the 4090's throne, the 5090, manages to usurp it.