Refresh
That’s it for me today, folks. At the moment, there’s little movement on the availability front; I’ll continue checking retailers to monitor any changes in stock or pre-order procedures so you can be the first to know when it changes.
Be sure to check back in with this guide to see how the situation develops! Think of it as practice for getting your hands on a 5080 come launch day if you like.
Diving into the tech specs, the RTX 5080 has a max temperature rating of 88 degrees Celsius (190.4 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas the 4080 maxes out two degrees higher at 90 Celsius (194 Fahrenheit).
This means that ideally, despite churning out (presumably) a significant amount more performance, the 5080 will run a bit cooler than the RTX 4080. However, if we find the 5080 runs particularly hot under load (stay tuned for our review next week), that lower max temperature could be an issue for graphically demanding titles on builds that have poor ventilation.
Speaking of the monster power draw I mentioned earlier, Asus ROG’s RTX 5080 page lists the ROG THOR III 1600W (or 1200W at least) power supply as the “perfect PSU companion” to the newly-listed ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition graphics card – now that’s a lot of power.
This version of the 5080 also comes stocked with not two, or even three, but four fans along with rows of heatsink fins to keep the heat from slowing down clock speeds, and 16GB of Nvidia’s new GDDR7 video memory will definitely be a sight to behold.
If you’re seriously considering upgrading to Nvidia’s RTX 5080, I’d head to one of the websites that lets you get a notification as soon as stock drops in – these being Nvidia, Best Buy and B&H Photo in the US, and Nvidia, Scan, Overclockers, and Box in the UK (links above) – so you can try your best to beat the scalpers and resellers.
If you live near a Micro Center, you might have a good chance of picking a 5080 up in person. It’s offering a voucher system on a first-come first-serve basis that guarantees you’ll be able to purchase a GPU on launch day (though it doesn’t guarantee a specific model or manufacturer). Micro Center stores also have a rule in place that allows only one 5080 or 5090 per customer, meaning if you don’t mind waiting in line, this could be a good chance to pick up a Blackwell card the day it comes out.
If you’d prefer to try your luck at buying one online, Newegg is a great place to look. It’s offering a trade-in deal on your current GPU towards a new 5000 series card. Just for fun, I looked at how much I’d get if I traded my (fully-functioning, undamaged) MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti in – $419 towards a new GPU isn’t shabby at all.
All that power means the 5000 series isn’t just for gamers, either.
If you’re a creative professional who relies on a quality GPU to render large amounts of 3D art for editing, or you’re a programmer who works with large-scale ML models, you’ll see some significant improvements over other cards (the 5090 scored “between 35% and 49.3% faster in [our] Blender Benchmark 4.30 tests” for 3D rendering over the 4090, as well as “up to 34.3% faster in Geekbench 6 OpenGL compute test and 53.9% faster in Vulcan”).
Interestingly enough, video editing only saw a small bump in performance, though our Components Editor believes CPU bottlenecking may be at fault here.
With great power comes great…power draw. We just put our much-anticipated Nvidia RTX 5090 review live earlier today, and one of the main ideas I took from it was just how much of a high-end card it really is.
The 5090 isn’t just for the average gamer looking to squeeze out a few extra frames per second. This card regularly pulls down 550W or more of power, and is capable of throwing 200+ fps at 8K (yes, 8K) resolution on Ultra settings in games like Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, and Star Wars: Outlaws using Multi-Frame Generation.
If you’re thinking about upgrading to a 5090, it’s important to also keep in mind the hidden costs that come with that upgrade; do you have a sufficient power supply? Are your motherboard and RAM up to snuff, and will your current CPU be a massive bottleneck?
That’s why I have my eyes set on the RTX 5080 (or hopefully a 5080 Ti down the road) as a realistic upgrade choice; we can’t talk about the specific performance of this card just yet (stay tuned for that review next week), but its more palatable price tag and the fact that it can also take advantage of Multi-Frame Generation makes me think it could be the best value play of the Blackwell lineup.
You can’t talk about Nvidia’s new graphics cards without talking about AI and DLSS, can you?
DLSS is the tech that allows Nvidia to tout results like the new $549 5070 performing as well as 2022’s $1,599 RTX 4090 – it’s also cause for heated debate in the PC gaming world, as enthusiasts are divided on whether “fake frames” should be considered in performance metrics.
While all RTX cards (including the 20, 30, and 40 series GPUs) will be able to utilize most of DLSS 4’s features, as of right now only the new 50 series cards will benefit from the latest improvements like Multi Frame Generation (though it looks like Nvidia may be bringing MFG to older cards).
If you read through our Nvidia RTX 5090 review, you’ll find “In non-upscaled 1440p gaming, you’re looking at a roughly 18% better average frame rate and a 22.6% better minimum/1% framerate for the RTX 5090.” over the 4090 – so it seems DLSS isn’t everything the 5000 series has to offer.
If you suddenly decide you actually have more cash to throw at your PC build (or perhaps you made a typo while Googling) and you’d rather spring for Nvidia’s upcoming flagship monster GPU the RTX 5090, be sure to go and have a gander at our where to buy the RTX 5090 page. I’ll be keeping both pages updated regularly up til launch day and beyond to help you find the card you want – and if you change your mind and want to opt for a more affordable card, we’ll be doing the same for the mid-range RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti in February too.
According to recent reports and rumors, RTX 5000 stock shortages are likely – but I could’ve told you that without needing to read anything. This happens every single time; why would this generation be any different?
Also as inevitable as death and taxes are the scalpers. Sadly, we’re almost certainly going to see some particularly scummy (sorry, ‘enterprising’) individuals snapping up these cards and trying to resell them at inflated prices. Even if you’ve got the cash, steer clear. These sellers are also known to pull scams on desperate shoppers, and if I’m being honest, we shouldn’t support this sort of behavior anyway. Stay strong, friends!
One question many eager PC gamers will no doubt be asking right now is this: where are the pre-orders? And that’s a good question, since it appears that no retailers are offering any sort of pre-order system whatsoever, and it seems less and less likely that we’ll see any at all as launch day creeps closer.
This is a little unusual, but there’s a potential simple explanation: Nvidia and its retail partners are perfectly aware that the RTX 5090 and 5080 are likely to sell out near-instantly with demand remaining high for a while (as was the case with the RTX 4090), so implementing pre-orders systems might just not be worth the time and effort. If you know they’re going to sell like hot cakes anyway, why bother?
One thing we can already talk about is the new physical design of Nvidia’s next-gen graphics cards. The high-end Founders Edition cards of the RTX 4000 generation rightly received some flak from gamers and reviewers alike for being… a little chunky, to say the least. Notably, only the 4070 FE and 4070 Super FE actually qualified for Nvidia’s own Small Form Factor certification.
That’s not the case this time around: every RTX 5000 card all the way up to the RTX 5090 will be small enough to fit inside a (relatively) compact case, something we’re very excited about. A smaller footprint also means a lighter GPU, since the previous RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 were very heavy and carried the risk of damaging your motherboard if not properly supported inside your PC.
While our review of the RTX 5080 (and its big brother, the 5090) won’t be going live for a few hours – we’d rather not upset Nvidia today of all days – you can check out our RTX 5090 unboxing right now to see what’s included in the box.
Most notably, Nvidia has moved away from the problematic 12VHPWR power connector in favor of a new connector with additional sensor pins and a bundled in-box adapter, which should make fitting these new GPUs inside smaller cases easy – and prevent any danger of cable-melting fiascos.
It’s that time of year again; Nvidia is taking the gaming world by storm with the release of its new RTX 5000 series GPUs, and I’ve got my eye set on the higher mid-range RTX 5080. I’m currently rocking an RTX 3080 Ti in my gaming rig, and while it’s served me well, the 5000 series looks to be an interesting value proposition – so I’m excited to see whether the late TI card release trend continues.
But for now, we have a release date of Thursday, January 30 for the Blackwell lineup, including the Nvidia RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 (check out our hub on where to find RTX 5090 stock if you’re after peak performance). We’ve already gotten our hands on a Blackwell card, but we can’t let you know what we think until the review embargo lifts this Friday, January 23 (keep an eye out for TechRadar’s in-depth review later today!)
That said, those release dates haven’t stopped loads of retailers from teasing their 5080 stock early. Some storefronts like Newegg have already created landing pages that group all of its 5080 stock in one place – perfect for comparing prices and delivery dates.
Make sure to bookmark this page for more updates – I’ll be scouring retailers for any updates as stock and availability moves, so you can be the first to know.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login