So, the rumour mill doesn't stop churning ever! The spotlight this time is on the RTX 5080 because leaked benchmark scores have finally seen the light of day. Numbers have arrived courtesy of Geekbench tests for both OpenCL and Vulkan, and it indeed seems someone let the cat out of the bag a wee bit too early.
Grudge Purchasing: 22% Faster than the 4080. But
So, what can these early benchmarks tell us? Well, in Vulkan, the RTX 5080 seems like it's around 22% quicker than the RTX 4080. Not too shabby, is it? Jump over to OpenCL, though, and that lead shrinks down to a more modest 6% or so. With synthetic benchmarks, these figures are also always best swallowed with a bit of salt. Real-game performance can very well tell quite another story.
Perhaps the most interesting takeaway? Despite the performance jump, the RTX 5080 still seems to be lagging behind the previous-gen king, the RTX 4090, by around 19% in these synthetic tests. That used to not be the case; typically, the '80-class' card of a new generation would pip the '90-class' of the last, but that trend may be changing.
Benchmark Breakdown: OpenCL vs. Vulkan
Down to brass tacks. Below is a table summarizing the Geekbench leaks, which let us pit the RTX 5080 against its predecessors and the current top dog:
| GPU Name | OpenCL Score | Vulkan Score | % vs RTX 5080 (OpenCL) | % vs RTX 5080 (Vulkan) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 5090 | 373463 | 366095 | 145.81% | 139.82% |
| RTX 4090 | 317436 | 267112 | 123.93% | 102.02% |
| RTX 5080 | 256138 | 261836 | 100.00% | 100.00% |
Under the Hood: GB203 and GDDR7
The RTX 5080 is expected to be based on the GB203 die, with 10,752 CUDA cores, since 84 Streaming Multiprocessors would fall substantially short of the RTX 5090. It also mirrors its predecessor, the RTX 4080, with 16GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit interface. 24GB may have been tempting, particularly given the bandwidth provided by GDDR7, but Nvidia seems to have decided on a more conservative memory configuration for this card.
Launch Date and Availability: January 30th. If You're Lucky
The word on the street right now, however, is that both the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will drop in-store from January 30th. But as we know all too well, launch dates are only the beginning of the story, and supply chain gremlins might mean initial stock is limited, which could lead to the dreaded scenario of inflated prices and scalpers. Fingers crossed it's smoother than expected!
Final Verdict? Wait and See
These leaked benchmarks are a tantalizing glimpse of what the RTX 5080 might bring to the table. That 22 percent uplift over the RTX 4080 in Vulkan isn't anything to sneeze at, but the shadow of the RTX 4090 looms very large. Ultimately, how well the RTX 5080 will perform in real-world gaming scenarios-and most importantly, how much it costs-will determine whether it actually wins over the hearts and wallets of gamers. Keep an eye out for more information as we draw closer to the hopefully January 30th launch!
