NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 5080 | Radeon RX 7900 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 16GB GDDR7 | 20GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 960 GB/s | 800 GB/s |
| Shaders | 10752 | 5376 |
| Boost Clock | 2617 MHz | 2400 MHz |
| TDP | 360W | 300W |
| Architecture | Blackwell 2.0 | RDNA 3.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 8,762 | 5,616 |
| Best Price | $999 | $680 |
| Value Score | 46/100 | 56/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is faster but costs more. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT offers better value for money. Your choice depends on budget vs. performance priority.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 vs AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT: Which Should You Buy?
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is 10% faster at 1440p ultra (138.4 fps against 125.9 fps). That is roughly one settings notch — enough to matter if you are chasing a specific refresh rate, not enough to rescue a bad price.
You pay a 47% premium for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ($999 against $680) to get 10% more frames. The extra frames do not keep up with the extra cost — the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the better value here.
Two things beyond raw speed: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT carries 20GB against 16GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 16GB cards age badly; and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT draws 60W less (300W versus 360W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is 3 years newer (2025 versus 2022), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.