RTX 5080 outperforms RTX 4080 by 10% in Blender benchmark — only 8% higher than RTX 4080 Super
Don’t bother upgrading if you're coming from the RTX 4080 Super.

The GeForce RTX 5080 is set to arrive in the next few days, and performance benchmark leaks have started appearing. A Redditor has unearthed Blender results for the GeForce RTX 5080, providing a glimpse of its capabilities.
According to benchmark results, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 has a median score of 9077.3 points across two results, which is only a little over 700 points or 8% above the previous generation RTX 4080 Super. Compared to the RTX 4080, the RTX 5080 delivered up to 10% higher performance in Blender.
The numbers may look disappointing, especially as previously leaked benchmarks showed a 22% uplift over the RTX 4080. However, the results were from Geekbench, a questionable benchmark for evaluating graphics card performance. Many would argue that Blender is a more solid benchmark. The RTX 5090 performs about 25% better than the RTX 4090. It'll be interesting to see how the RTX 5080 stacks up to its predecessor, as the gap in actual gaming FPS you get with the RTX 5080 versus the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4080 might even be smaller.
GPU | Blender Score | Performance Difference | Launch Price |
---|---|---|---|
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 | 14,904.41 | 164.2% | $1,999 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090D | 14,706.65 | 162% | $1,999 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 | 9,077.3 | 100% | $999 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super | 8,375.68 | 92.3% | $999 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 | 8,286.35 | 91.3% | $1,199 |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | 5283.59 | 58.2% | $1,199 |
Still, we will have to wait until Nvidia lifts the embargo on the RTX 5080 on January 29 until we see real-world results for this GPU. We still have our fingers crossed that it will deliver a performance uplift that will make it a worthy upgrade over the previous generation GPU and a viable option for gamers who don’t want to spend $2,000 on a high-end graphics card.
If these leaked Blender benchmarks would track with the real-world FPS that the RTX 5080 would deliver, then it makes no sense to spend over a thousand dollars just to get between 8% to 10% better performance from your RTX 4080-series GPU. But if you’re coming from an RTX 3080 Ti, the near doubling of performance might make it a good upgrade.
You might have to be patient if you plan to upgrade at launch, though, as the RTX 5090 currently has limited stocks. Some scalpers are even taking advantage of this situation and selling the rights to buy the $2,000 GPU for over three times the MSRP. So, if Nvidia doesn’t fix the situation with the RTX 5080, you can expect the same, with the card selling for way over the MSRP.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
-
oofdragon At 10% better performance its not even a true 4080 Super, Ngreedia rlly want ppl to shell out thousands if they want more. Anyways the 4080 performance is ok for current gen games but t isn't worth $1000 and never was IMO. Team AMD on the other side of the ring will unleash a 4080 lvl performer for anything between $500 and $700, that's way more acceptableReply -
VizzieTheViz Why would you still hope for more gaming performance?Reply
5090 is about 1.3 * 4090 when looking at cores etc and performs just like that in gaming: 25 to 30% better.
I don’t see any reason why a 5080 that’s about 1.1 * 4080 would perform more than 10% better in gaming at the most. -
Gururu Maybe ok if we are seeing 4-5x FPS jumps with MFR and DLSS4 as we see with the 5090 in 4K w/RT. Of course, we wouldn't want to see the same with the 4080 and the backwards compatibility (DLSS4) nVidia has been talking about.Reply -
Mama Changa
Steve at hardware unboxed alreay teased the 5080 and 5070's will be much weaker upgrades than 5090, so in other words pitiful. Alas, for users Nvidia did basically no architectural improvements so IPC is not better. 5090 is only better due to brute force, 33% more cores for only 27% average better performance and 25% price rise, that's the very definition of stagnation. 5080 will be even worse.VizzieTheViz said:Why would you still hope for more gaming performance?
5090 is about 1.3 * 4090 when looking at cores etc and performs just like that in gaming: 25 to 30% better.
I don’t see any reason why a 5080 that’s about 1.1 * 4080 would perform more than 10% better in gaming at the most. -
Jabberwocky79 Discouraging news to say the least. Being that I will be upgrading from a 1080, then the 5080 still makes sense. But if I already had a 4080? No way. I'd even buy a 4080 even now if the prices hadn't gotten stupid again.Reply -
VizzieTheViz
Yeah I’m at a 980ti and looking to do a new build, but this 50 series is totally underwhelming.Jabberwocky79 said:Discouraging news to say the least. Being that I will be upgrading from a 1080, then the 5080 still makes sense. But if I already had a 4080? No way. I'd even buy a 4080 even now if the prices hadn't gotten stupid again.
I’ll probably get 9070XT if that’s any good or a 5090 so I won’t have to buy another gpu for a good long while. Don’t really want to encourage nvidia going this direction though, so I’ll probably go AMD. -
KyaraM Funny how AMD can release the 7800XT, which was no better than the 6800XT, for the same price and get away with it just fine, but any Nvidia card that releases for the same price, or lower, as the predecessor, but doesn't offer very significant upgrades, is garbage and not worth the money. Are people seriously this blind to their own bias? And the 5070 launches at a lower price than the predecessor, too...Reply -
VizzieTheViz
7800XT wasn’t a good deal either although it was priced lower than 6800xt here in Europe at least.KyaraM said:Funny how AMD can release the 7800XT, which was no better than the 6800XT, for the same price and get away with it just fine, but any Nvidia card that releases for the same price, or lower, as the predecessor, but doesn't offer very significant upgrades, is garbage and not worth the money. Are people seriously this blind to their own bias? And the 5070 launches at a lower price than the predecessor, too...
Both companies have had generations of cards that were good and that were meh, no need to be so upset.
The 30 and 40 series were really good for team green: a 3080 was way faster than a 2080 and a 4080 easily beats a 3080. I don’t see a 5080 doing a lot better that a 4080 though, and i would really like to.
If a 9070 won’t be a lot better than 7700 than AMD isn’t getting my money either.
I just like to see a new architecture bring real benefit so I can buy a better GPU for the same price or a cheaper gpu with the same performance. Sorry if I can’t get excited about a new generation with the same performance per euro from either AMD or nvidia. -
OldAnalogWorld Given the rising prices of the new versions, only crazy fanatics will buy them.Reply -
KyaraM
You are correct, but that wasn't the point. The point is that some people here, in this forum, still considered the 7800XT an upgrade over the 6800XT, despite both having the same performance, and switched from the latter to rhe former. The card also wasn't ridiculed that much and the main argument for the 6800XT was the price.VizzieTheViz said:7800XT wasn’t a good deal either although it was priced lower than 6800xt here in Europe at least.
Both companies have had generations of cards that were good and that were meh, no need to be so upset.
The 30 and 40 series were really good for team green: a 3080 was way faster than a 2080 and a 4080 easily beats a 3080. I don’t see a 5080 doing a lot better that a 4080 though, and i would really like to.
If a 9070 won’t be a lot better than 7700 than AMD isn’t getting my money either.
I just like to see a new architecture bring real benefit so I can buy a better GPU for the same price or a cheaper gpu with the same performance. Sorry if I can’t get excited about a new generation with the same performance per euro from either AMD or nvidia.
You are free to be excited or not, and in all honesty, I won't upgrade either, and will only recommend the new cards to people who really need a new card. I rarely do generational upgrades, with a single exception, I tend to skip a generation at minimum, often two or three. My interest in the new cards is mildly academic at best. I'm more excited to get most of DLSS 4 on my 4070Ti than I am about the thought of getting a 5000 series card. And I'm not convinced yet that 9070XT will be a "4080 performer" as some here predict, either; that one benchmark war extremely inconclusive, and to me the card didn't look impressive at all. I want to see 3rd party reviews of all cards before final judgement. It's people's behavior that I criticize.