AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE Versus RTX 4080 SUPER Review

The NVIDIA RTX 5080 is now available, if you can find stock, of course. The new 50-Series GPUs come with improved performance, DLSS 4, and some other fancy AI-powered technology that will take your games to the next level. However, while the new cards are cool to have around, what if you already have a pretty decent high-end RTX 40-Series GPU in your PC?

Watch this review below:

A lot of people have asked me how the RTX 5080 would compare to, say, the RTX 4080 SUPER. The 4080 SUPER is likely the best 40-Series card you can look at without nudging into the ridiculous price tag territory of the 4090. So I wanted to compare the RTX 4080 SUPER to the RTX 5080.

I actually own the RTX 4080 SUPER myself and love the card. It really does offer some incredible power and a middle-ground between the 4070 Ti and 4090. With the 5080 on my desk, I didn’t know if the upgrade would be worth it. It uses more power and costs more. For those on the fence, I hope this helps you decide.

So while this will technically be reviewing the RTX 5080, it will focus more on the comparison between the RTX 4080 SUPER. I will be using the AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE and the Gigabyte RTX 4080 SUPER GAMING OC for this comparison. All the tests are being done on my daily gaming PC, which includes the AMD Ryzen 9900X, 64GB of DDR6 RAM clocked at 6000MT/s, the AORUS WaterForce 360 XII cooler, and the X870 AORUS Elite Wi-Fi 7 board.

Before we get into the tests, I need to show you this AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE because this card is just something else. The MASTER ICE marks the high-end range from Gigabyte. It comes in a pretty large box that includes the GPU and some accessories. The accessories are a little different this time around. First off, the support bracket is no longer a motherboard mount. Instead, you get some metal rails and these get screwed into the GPU, which is then supported by a foot.

I think the mount is cool. It beats being restricted by a motherboard’s support, or lack thereof. I know when I moved to my X870 board, it no longer supported the bracket that came with my RTX 4080 SUPER, even though both components are Gigabyte.

This fan is also new here. It is one of the first cards to include Screen Cooling Plus. Essentially, this fan installs onto the top of the GPU and exhumes heat away from the Screen Cooling cutout. It helps dissipate heat.

While this is cool to see, I feel like GPUs have been gargantuan in size for years now, so I can’t help but wonder why this is a thing only now. Regardless, I will test out whether it makes a difference or not later on. The box also includes a white 12V cable to match the white GPU.

As for the design of the AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE, I can’t praise this card enough. It is so sleek and packs a real eye-catching design. The triple-fan layout comes with the RGB Halo tech that illuminates lights right on the top of the fan blades, resulting in something truly unique.

You’ll also find RGB on the back side of the GPU as the AORUS logo lights up. On the side, there’s also another AORUS logo next to the LCD Edge View Screen. This little screen can be fully customised with various sensor indicators and even your own graphics. I do prefer the customisation setting called “off”.

The AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE is 360mm long, 150mm wide, and 75mm thick. It packs one HDMI 2.1b port and three DisplayPort 2.1b ports. You’ll need an 850W power supply to run this card.

Overall, this is a sleek GPU. I do enjoy the dent design on the edge of it, and the white shell is a change from my usual black components. I am using the card in a black PC, and it looks cool. I am sure you’ll want a full white build, but this does the job just fine.

RTX 5080 VERSUS RTX 4080 SUPER

Putting the stats on paper, the RTX 5080 comes with 16GB of GDDR7 RAM with a memory clock of 30Gbps. The RTX 4080 SUPER includes 16GB of GDDR6X RAM with a memory clock of 23Gbps. Both cards pack the same 256-bit memory bus.

The 5080 includes 10752 CUDA Cores, while the RTX 4080 SUPER includes 10240 CUDA Cores. The Core Clock on the RTX 5080 is 2805MHz, which is overclocked from the 2617MHz on the reference card. The RTX 4080 SUPER includes a Core Clock of 2595MHz, which is overclocked from the 2550MHz on the reference card.

So the RTX 5080 does have a beefier out-of-the-box Core Clock. I know that Gigabyte has mentioned that the 50-Series GPUs have more headroom for overclocking, which is likely why we see the count so much higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER. I do try and push the RTX 4080 SUPER a bit higher later on through some overclocking tweaks.

So onto the tests. I ran these benchmarks in the same environment. I used the same PC build, same settings, and tried to ensure that all game settings were identical. I didn’t touch any overclocking tweaks in the GIGABYTE CONTROL CENTER until later on when I tried to match the performance headroom a bit more.

I also disabled any RTX 50-Series exclusive features. So I didn’t run DLSS 4. I do have a few DLSS 4 tests coming up later on too.

The first batch of tests you’ll see below is directly comparing the RTX 5080 to the RTX 4080 SUPER. My system was on Performance Mode. I maxed out my cooler and fans too. I applied a slight overclock tweak to the RTX 4080 SUPER. I usually have this setting applied for everyday gaming. It is plus 160MHz to the Boost Clock, taking it to 2755MHz. I also increased the power limit by 25% and temperature limit to 88C. There’s also a 998MTs increase in memory speed to 24Gbps.

The first test was Black Myth Wukong. It doesn’t support DLSS 4 Frame Gen, so I disabled it on both benchmarks and in both scenarios. You can see across both the Ultra Performance and Quality DLSS , the scores were very close. This is a clear sign that the actual raw power of the RTX 5080 isn’t leaps and bounds above the RTX 4080 SUPER. Of course, the benchmark doesn’t support the Path Raytracing feature, which is where the RTX 5080 would likely see a big jump. 

Next is Cyberpunk 2077. I won’t lie, while I enjoy the benchmark tool in the game, the entire process has become incredibly cumbersome now due to the dozens of menus available. Regardless, the test I ran disabled Frame Gen and focused on raw performance. I also made use of the convolutional Neural Network DLSS to match it with the RTX 5080. 

Dying Light 2 didn’t have DLSS 4 support at the time. So it was a great game to compare. I ran two tests comparing the same Balanced Super Resolution and another test without Frame Gen enabled. Here you can see the RTX 5080 has a noticeable boost in performance when Frame Gen is enabled. However, disabling any sort of upscaling, you again see minor differences. 

Another DLSS 4-free game I tested was Dragon Age. It is quite a demanding game. With everything maxed out, even the RTX 5080 struggled to reach 4K 60FPS without the help of DLSS 3. 

Indiana Jones shows where the RTX 5080 shines, in its path ray tracing. Disabling all DLSS and enabling path ray tracing, the game is playable at around 50FPS when set to medium. On the RTX 4080, the same settings result in 8FPS. Completely unplayable. However, disabling Path RT and all DLSS features, the performance metrics are quite similar. 

DLSS 4 TESTS

Just to show the performance of DLSS 4, I did run a few extra tests here on some supported games. Of course, you can’t really compare these scores to the RTX 4080 SUPER as it doesn’t have the Transformer Model tech.

When it comes to the new Screen Cooling Plus feature, I monitored the temperatures on my PC with and without the extra fan attached to the GPU. Before I get into the stats, the installation of this fan is fairly simple. There is a silicone mount that clips onto the screen cooling hole. You then slide the fan onto the silicone nubs, plug the fan into your dedicated slots, and you’re good to go. Does it make a difference? Well, it does, but the difference is almost unnoticeable.

I ran the Steel Nomad stress test. The fans reached 2050RPM, temperatures maxed at 67C, and the GPU was pulling around 360W of power. The fans remained around the 2100RPM with the sensor reading 66 – 67C. Temperatures would hover between 66 and 67C. This would be your best look at standard gaming over a long period of time.

Without the fan attached, I ran the same Steel Nomad stress loop. The fans reached 2100RPM, but this time, I noticed the readings hit 69C instead of 67C. So instead of hovering between 66 and 67C, we’re getting 68 and 69C. A two-degree change. I won’t even say these two degrees were a constant because it stayed on 68C more than 69C.

You’ll likely get better results tweaking your system fans to improve cooling in this regard. Of course, different PC builds will result in different scenarios, but I can’t say this fan made any drastic difference in performance and cooling.

Comparing these two cards shows various results when you take each GPU’s tech and put it head-to-head. When it comes to raw performance, the cards are quite close. When it comes to path ray tracing, the RTX 5080 far surpasses the RTX 4080 SUPER. When it comes to DLSS 3 tests, again, they show decent scores that will make any 4K 60FPS game completely playable on both cards.

So the RTX 5080 is great for DLSS 4 and path ray tracing – two features that are still quite limited in terms of how many games support this. However, even then, the RTX 4080 SUPER pretty much does the same job with a simple DLSS toggle. It can easily handle path ray tracing as long as it is boosted with DLSS. In addition, when it comes to DLSS 3, most games support the tech, meaning you’re not missing out on any unplayable games because they are exclusive to DLSS 4.

In summary, the RTX 5080 is a fantastic card. It is definitely better on paper, but this boost in power doesn’t make the RTX 4080 SUPER something to ignore. Both cards will likely offer similar performance across games for the next few years. Sure, DLSS 4 comes with some cleaner image quality and Multi-Frame Generation, but we definitely aren’t at the stage where games will strictly rely on Multi-Frame Generation to be playable.

Should you get an RTX 5080? Well, if you want the best, then yes. If you want to sort of future-proof your system, then this is the GPU for you. However, the RTX 4080 SUPER is likely the next best thing, providing some fantastic value in comparison. I know, it is a tough choice, but given the price difference, at least you can weigh things up now.

Visit the official AORUS GEFORCE RTX 5080 MASTER ICE product page for more information on this GPU.