Abstract:
NVIDIA previously confirmed at the SIGGRAPH 2026 conference that the three sets of AI models included in DLSS 5 rely on the unique hardware scheduling unit of the Blackwell architecture. Only the RTX 50 series supports it, and the RTX 4090 does not have access to this technology.
According to the latest measured comparison by overseas media Tech-Insider, the competitive landscape between RTX 4090 and RTX 5080 has changed, and it is no longer a pure running game.
From the perspective of underlying specifications, RTX Although the 4090 has 16384 CUDA cores and 24GB of video memory, it still has an advantage in raw computing power. However, the built-in Flip-Metering multi-frame scheduling hardware unit of the RTX 5080 enables it to support DLSS 4.5 multi-frame generation, inserting up to 3 AI generated frames within a single frame interval, while the RTX 4090 only supports single frame generation of DLSS 3.
DLSS 5 further expands AI rendering capabilities on this basis, and the gap in software ecology between the two generations of graphics cards is widening.
Although when all AI enhancement technologies are turned off, the RTX 4090 still leads the RTX 5080 by about 15% in 4K rasterized games, and leads by 12% to 16% in the 3DMark Port Royal ray tracing test.
However, the size of the DLSS 5 core library file recently leaked from the early access version of "NBA 2K27" is as high as 158MB, which is more than three times that of the previous generation components, implying that the complexity of the AI model has increased significantly.
Once DLSS 5 is officially launched, the actual smoothness of the RTX 5080 in the first adapted games may surpass the RTX 4090 with a higher native frame rate.
In addition, power consumption and market conditions have further weakened RTX The price/performance ratio of the 4090 is that the power consumption of the whole card of the RTX 5080 is 360W, which is 90W lower than the 450W of the RTX 4090, and the requirements for the power supply and cooling system are significantly reduced.
In terms of initial price, the RTX 5080 is set at US$999 (approximately RMB 7,120), which is more than RMB 4,000 cheaper than the RTX 4090’s price of US$1,599 (approximately RMB 11,390).
The current
new inventory of RTX 4090 on the market has been basically exhausted, and the domestic second-hand price has risen to about 30,000 yuan. Compared with the RTX 5080, which is generally priced around 12,000 yuan, the price gap is huge.
There are currently 15 games known to be adapted to DLSS 5 for the first time. As the technology is officially launched in the fall, this AI-generated rendering mode will become a watershed in differentiating the performance of the two generations of graphics cards.
For users who plan to use a graphics card for three years, the advantages of RTX 5080 in the technology life cycle are obviously more obvious.
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