Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2025]

[Shortbread]

The RTX 5080 is a strong-performing GPU - to a point. It offers significant value advantages over RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 - but it's nowhere near as fast as either of them. Meanwhile, performance gains over the outgoing RTX 4080 Super are variable but never transformative. DLSS 4 multi frame generation is a nice-to-have feature - but comparisons against RTX 4090 with standard frame-gen show mixed results with latency. Rich has the complete lowdown.

00:00 Introduction
02:52 Tech Specs: RTX 5080 vs 4080 Super/4090/5090
04:07 Power/Core Clocks/Performance
06:33 Benchmarks Introduction
07:25 RT Benchmarks: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
09:03 RT Benchmarks: Alan Wake 2
10:09 RT Benchmarks: Cyberpunk 2077
11:03 RT Benchmarks: Dying Light 2
11:44 RT Benchmarks: F1 24
12:23 RT Benchmarks: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
13:31 RT Benchmarks: A Plague Tale: Requiem
14:22 Raster Benchmarks: Black Myth: Wukong
15:47 Raster Benchmarks: Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
16:32 Raster Benchmarks: Forza Horizon 5
17:54 Benchmark Summary & Key Differentials
18:58 Path Tracing/'Full RT' Introduction
19:54 DLSS 4: Cyberpunk 2077
21:44 DLSS 4: Alan Wake 2
24:37 RTX 5080 Value Summary
27:04 And Now, The Conclusion

 

[homerdog]

00:00 Introduction
02:52 Tech Specs: RTX 5080 vs 4080 Super/4090/5090
04:07 Power/Core Clocks/Performance
06:33 Benchmarks Introduction
07:25 RT Benchmarks: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
09:03 RT Benchmarks: Alan Wake 2
10:09 RT Benchmarks: Cyberpunk 2077
11:03 RT Benchmarks: Dying Light 2
11:44 RT Benchmarks: F1 24
12:23 RT Benchmarks: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
13:31 RT Benchmarks: A Plague Tale: Requiem
14:22 Raster Benchmarks: Black Myth: Wukong
15:47 Raster Benchmarks: Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
16:32 Raster Benchmarks: Forza Horizon 5
17:54 Benchmark Summary & Key Differentials
18:58 Path Tracing/'Full RT' Introduction
19:54 DLSS 4: Cyberpunk 2077
21:44 DLSS 4: Alan Wake 2
24:37 RTX 5080 Value Summary
27:04 And Now, The Conclusion

So it's more of a feature upgrade than a performance upgrade. Plus I assume you'll actually be able to buy one (at some point). The 4080 Super has been gone for a while.

 

[Scott_Arm]

So it's more of a feature upgrade than a performance upgrade. Plus I assume you'll actually be able to buy one (at some point). The 4080 Super has been gone for a while.

I'm waiting for the written review. This one is a bit weird because it's entirely 4k, which is not something I have any interest in. The things I want to see, I still haven't seen anyone cover. Haven't seen anyone bench one of these cards to see what it takes to hit 480 Hz, or how well frame gen works when the base frame rate is 120, or 240. I get that you can't frame capture it properly, but I'd even be happy to see some subjective impressions, but mostly I want to see if it bottlenecks at any point, and what the latency penalties look like at such high frame rates.

If I had an LDAT, a card and a 480Hz monitor, I'd honestly make the video myself, but I'm priced out.

 

[Shortbread]

So it's more of a feature upgrade than a performance upgrade. Plus I assume you'll actually be able to buy one (at some point). The 4080 Super has been gone for a while.

Pretty much. The 5080 is something of a mess, more than likely the later TI edition will bring it more inline with (or slightly above) the 4090 when it comes to raw performance. The 5090 is mostly a 4090 TI (if one were to exist beyond the leaked/rumored images of one existing) if we're quite honest about it, just with more [optimized] tensor cores for greater A.I. related tasks. But I'm a sucker for the latest and greatest in the PC space, so my 5090 should be here next week.

 

[QPlayer]

Very good. Well, it seems that they have reached the limits in terms of the performance of the processors in production, from here on only the features will dominate.

 

[homerdog]

Pretty much. The 5080 is something of a mess, more than likely the later TI edition will bring it more inline with (or slightly above) the 4090 when it comes to raw performance. The 5090 is mostly a 4090 TI (if one were to exist beyond the leaked/rumored images of one existing) if we're quite honest about it, just with more [optimized] tensor cores for greater A.I. related tasks. But I'm a sucker for the latest and greatest in the PC space, so my 5090 should be here next week.

How did you get a 5090? And if you don't mind, how much did you have to pay for it?

 

[Shortbread]

Very good. Well, it seems that they have reached the limits in terms of the performance of the processors in production, from here on only the features will dominate.

If this is the case, and for a lengthy period of time, then the console space could potentially catch-up with the PC in terms of raw raster performance. The PC will still have the advantage when it comes to VRAM, system ram, and pushing beyond the more restrictive power-draw budget consoles typically follow.

 

[Scott_Arm]

If this is the case, and for a lengthy period of time, then the console space could potentially catch-up with the PC in terms of raw raster performance. The PC will still have the advantage when it comes to VRAM, system ram, and pushing beyond the more restrictive power-draw budget consoles typically follow.

As performance improvements from node changes become smaller performance will scale with power or things like ai, or more efficient upscale. PC will always have a power advantage. No one wants a 1000W console.

 

[Shortbread]

How did you get a 5090? And if you don't mind, how much did you have to pay for it?

Vendor relationship. I typically receive a notification from my business partners that such-such product will be available and in limited supply. And being a well established customer of ours... yada... yada... yada...

As such, I can get it without the hassle of ordering it through normal means.

 

[Shortbread]

As performance improvements from node changes become smaller performance will scale with power or things like ai, or more efficient upscale. PC will always have a power advantage. No one wants a 1000W console.

I do!

But yes, I know...

 

[Davros]

Vendor relationship.

Note : need a 5090 Shortbread will hook you up

 

[RobertR1]

Looking forward to DF’s PC IQ take on this, also good to see clearly defined specs and usecases. No need to sugarcoat and then people complain it runs poorly. Just be upfront…

 

[JPT]

Looking forward to DF’s PC IQ take on this, also good to see clearly defined specs and usecases. No need to sugarcoat and then people complain it runs poorly. Just be upfront…

Lazy devs, if they bothered to boot up their computers in their home office, instead of hanging out in beach bars, this would run great on my old Game Watch Donkey Kong Jr handheld...

 

[Flappy Pannus]

00:00 Overview
00:58 Initial issues
06:28 Settings: PC vs. PS5 Pro
14:42 PC performance
29:19 Steam Deck performance
32:55 Analysis and conclusion

Overall: Surprising lack of traversal stutter for an UE4 title, perhaps one of the best in this regard (on higher-end CPU's). 8GB GPU's will have to use low textures to avoid stuttering, and they look awful. Medium (at 1080p) is doable with 8GB, but expect traversal stutter when moving between some regions.

The worst part of the port though...shader stutter. There is a precompilation step, but it misses a lot.

Alex doesn't hold back on that:

In 2025, a company as large and as rich as Square Enix, releasing this for what is the most popular platform for these type of games. There are like, so many Steam users, and yet, one of the core tenants, core aspects of the PC is that you. have. to. solve. shader. compilation, and there's been so many presentations, documentation, Unreal Engine has advanced in its own right in its capacity over time - UE5 for example - and to see it ship with such incomplete shader compilation - even though it seems like they did something there - I think is actually a rather large failing and I don't think it should be acceptable anymore in the year 2025"

 

[Charlietus]

Flashback to the Maximilian dood videos on the PC version with him saying how it ran and looked so much better than the PS5 pro version, while at the same time you could see stutters in his own footage. You don't need to be digital foundry to notice it, most people are just blind to those issues and assume by principle.

 

[Remij]

Flashback to the Maximilian dood videos on the PC version with him saying how it ran and looked so much better than the PS5 pro version, while at the same time you could see stutters in his own footage. You don't need to be digital foundry to notice it, most people are just blind to those issues and assume by principle.

Max definitely isn't blind to the issues. Difference is that he's not on a 3600, he's on a 13900K and a 4090 I believe.

 

[Charlietus]

Max definitely isn't blind to the issues. Difference is that he's not on a 3600, he's on a 13900K and a 4090 I believe.

Watch his streams and you can see the game stutter. Not as bad as those with a 3600 but still visible.

PS: correction, he did say that he had shader stutter.