GALAX GeForce RTX 5080 1-Click OC White
January 2025Type
Graphics CardPrice
$999 USConclusion - Decent Bump At Same Price With Lots of Features
NVIDIA's next generation is finally here and oh boy, it has a lot of things we need to talk about. So let's start with the performance.
NVIDIA Is The Only Next-Gen GPU Choice For Enthusiasts
NVIDIA isn't giving up on the enthusiast gaming segment like its competitors and while the gains aren't as big as we saw in the previous generation, they still claim a solid position in the gaming market with the RTX 5090 flagship and even the RTX 5080.
Talking about rasterization and ray tracing-specific performance, you're looking at a 10-15% bump in performance which is modest at best. Sure, most of us were expecting similar gains as we saw from the RTX 4080 (versus the RTX 3080) but NVIDIA is achieving these gains on the same node so those bigger jumps might have to wait till the next node shrink and architectural update. This 10-15% uplift in performance does lead to higher gaming potential, especially at 4K. The RTX 5080 is going to be a tinier upgrade than the RTX 5090 but it packs the same set of features as the higher-end option.
DLSS4 Is The Game Changer, Better Image Quality Than DLSS3 With Transformers Gunning For 4K 240Hz Gaming
DLSS4 is huge! With the updated upscaling technology, NVIDIA is taking image quality to the next level. The model they have been training is in the most advanced state yet with the image quality improving day by day. DLSS4 is a visual upgrade over DLSS3 and all RTX gamers can enjoy its benefits. With the faster transformer model on the Blackwell GPUs, you will see limited losses in terms of performance when switching from the older CNN model to the newer transformer model.
Now DLSS has been plagued with the "Fake Frames" controversy in regards to the frame-gen tech but it does offer better performance and smoothness. NVIDIA is quadrupling the frame-gen with a 4x mode which boosts FPS dramatically. This is enough for those who want to utilize the potential of their 4K 240Hz monitors.
Yes, there will be certain artifacts when using DLSS4 with frame generation enabled but like I said, the DLSS model is improving and this is DLSS at its finest. We can expect DLSS4 to receive countless amounts of updates in the coming months and the time I spent trying it out, there were just minor artifacts that you can only notice when focusing on a certain section of the frame. It is almost visually indistinguishable from the native render.
NVIDIA's Blackwell Is Built For The Future of Gaming, But We Might Have to Wait
The NVIDIA Blackwell architecture is designed with AI in mind. While DLSS 4 and its 4x Multi-Frame Generation technology are one aspect, there's also support for FP4, which would help in certain AI workloads.
Things we liked about the Galax GeForce RTX 5080 1-Click OC:
- Lots of gaming performance for 4K
- Efficient and only 15W difference vs 4080
- Built For 4K 240Hz gaming monitors
- Designed With Next-Gen Neural Rendering
- Good Raster & RT Improvement
- Next-Gen Blackwell Architecture With Several AI Additions
- 16 GB of GDDR7 Memory
- DLSS4 Offers Better Image Quality
- DLSS4 MFG Offers 4x FPS Boost
- GALAX offering White OC design at MSRP is awesome
- Cooling Performance is Superb
- Very low noise output with 0db operation
- Next-Gen Video Encode/Decode Engines
- DP2.1b (UHBR20) support
- PCIe Express 5.0 technology
The big gun is the neural shaders support along with several new Neural rendering approaches that the company has highlighted and discussed. While the company hasn't yet announced any major game partnerships that will make use of these technologies, we are anxiously waiting for NVIDIA's update in this regard as that would further unlock the architectural potential of NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture.
GALAX Offers Great Cooling, White Looks & A Slight Overclock at MSRP
GALAX's updated 1-Click OC White model is a big beast with loads of overclocking potential packed within the PCB. No wonder the company itself is going big with overclocking, especially on the memory side which it plans to layout its plans in the days ahead. As for cooling, the card ran very cool around 65C and the overall looks of the card which include a full-white design with a great set of RGB LEDs is superb.
Things we would have liked about the Galax GeForce RTX 5080 1-Click OC:
- Performance not being a huge uplift versus 4080/4080 SUPER
- Lower Price Point
- More overclocking potential without limitations (voltage locked)
- Huge Graphics Card (3-slot design)
- GDDR7 Memory runs hot
- A few games with Neural Shaders at launch
Blackwell Focuses on Evolving The Software Stack Versus Improving Traditional Raster Performance
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 in all due respect is a feat of engineering, both architecturally and in terms of software updates. DLSS4, Neural Shaders, and FP4 for AI along with upgraded Media and Video engines are its core points which will go a long way once proper applications that utilize these features start to roll out.
For those looking for traditional performance uplifts, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 may not be the biggest uplift, offering an average of 12.5% increase in rasterization and a 14% increase in RT & PT-intensive titles. But at the same time, the RTX 5080 is priced at the same $999 as the 4080 SUPER & that's a good thing because if the card had been priced anywhere above this, it would've been a big disappointment. With that said, the $999 US price point is also not entirely justified as the 80-tier pricing has been seeing a major hike, and it's nowhere around the $599-$699 US price that it used to be a few years ago (we can blame inflation and other factors on that).
The major problem stems from the fact that the market would be filled with used RTX 4090s soon as users who want the best hardware would dispose of their older cards for the newer RTX 5090s. We can expect these cards to end up around $1200-$1300 US and the 15-20% better performance of the RTX 4090 coupled with its massive 24 GB VRAM is still mouthwatering. Sure there's no DLSS 4 support but the 4090 is still a solid gaming card. Furthermore, while the reviews are out today, we are expecting inventories at global retailers to be very tight and NVIDIA has just recently confirmed this too.
So overall, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080 lays a solid foundation for the green team's future in terms of software and AI-level optimizations for gamers and content creators. It's a high-end product for enthusiasts with ample amount of performance and a vast variety of features which we can't wait to try out ourselves in future gaming titles.
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