Nvidia RTX 5080 Hits Record Low: Just $929 at Walmart
▼ Summary
– The PNY GeForce RTX 5080 is now available at a discounted price of $929, which is $70 below Nvidia’s MSRP of $999.
– This model features a triple-slot design and a simple black and grey shroud, prioritizing affordability over aesthetics.
– As Nvidia’s second most powerful consumer GPU, the RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell architecture with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM.
– Performance testing shows the RTX 5080 offers only modest gains over the previous generation, with a 9% improvement in 4K rasterization and roughly 10% in 4K ray tracing.
– Despite the small performance increase, the card is a solid choice for 4K gaming and includes Nvidia’s latest technologies like DLSS 4.
For those building a high-performance gaming PC or a workstation for demanding creative tasks, the arrival of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 at a price below its official MSRP is significant news. Walmart is currently offering the PNY model for just $929, a substantial $70 discount that makes it the most affordable entry point into Nvidia’s latest Blackwell generation of GPUs.
This particular version from PNY, the GeForce RTX 5080 OC, sports a triple-slot cooling solution with a heatsink and fans housed in a straightforward black and grey shroud. While its aesthetic might be more functional than flashy, its primary appeal lies in its position as the most budget-friendly RTX 5080 available on the market.
Sitting just below the flagship RTX 5090, the RTX 5080 is a powerhouse built on the new Blackwell architecture. Its specifications are impressive, featuring 10,752 CUDA cores, 84 ray-tracing cores, and 336 tensor cores. It is equipped with 16GB of next-generation GDDR7 video memory, delivering a robust memory bandwidth of 960GB/s to handle high-resolution textures and complex scenes.
The card fully supports Nvidia’s suite of Blackwell technologies. This includes DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation for significantly boosted frame rates, enhanced ray tracing for more realistic lighting, and features like Reflex 2 and Nvidia Broadcast. In performance benchmarks focusing on traditional rasterization, the RTX 5080 secures a solid third place. Testing revealed it provides a modest but clear improvement over its predecessor, outperforming the RTX 4080 Super by approximately 9% in 4K Ultra settings, with smaller gains at lower resolutions.
When it comes to ray-traced performance, the generational leap is again measured rather than monumental. At 4K resolution, the RTX 5080 shows about a 10% advantage over the RTX 4080 Super. This lead narrows to around 8% at 1440p and roughly 7% at 1080p, with minimal differences on medium settings.
Despite these incremental gains in raw performance metrics, the RTX 5080 stands as an excellent choice for a powerful modern graphics card. It is more than capable of delivering a smooth and immersive 4K gaming experience. Its true value, however, may be in its access to Nvidia’s latest software ecosystem, making it a compelling option for gamers and tech enthusiasts who want to be on the cutting edge.
Shoppers interested in further savings can explore a wide range of component deals, including options for SSDs, hard drives, gaming monitors, other graphics cards, and CPUs, to complete their ideal PC build.
(Source: Tom’s Hardware)
