10 specifications

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

On paper, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 carries more memory (32 GB against 16 GB), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 has more shading units, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 has a wider memory bus. Shading-unit counts are not directly comparable across different architectures, so read that row as context rather than a verdict. Specifications describe what each card is designed to do; how much of that either one holds under continuous load is a separate question.

10 specifications · 5 with a higher side

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

NVIDIA · GeForce RTX 50 · Desktop

Full specifications

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

NVIDIA · GeForce RTX 50 · Desktop

Full specifications

Compute

Architecture

Blackwell (GB203)

Blackwell (GB202)

Shading units

10,752

21,760

Base clock

2300 MHz

2010 MHz

Boost clock

2620 MHz

2410 MHz

Memory

16 GB

32 GB

Memory type

GDDR7

Memory bus

256-bit

512-bit

Power and platform

TDP

360 W

575 W

Process

5 nm

Launched

2025-01-30

A check marks the higher figure only on rows where higher is unambiguously better. Rows without one are not ties; they are specifications where “better” has no meaning.

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Every figure on this table is a design target. None of it is a measurement.

Nothing above describes how a graphics card behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.

We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.

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