Conclusion
The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G represents the top-tier, enthusiast-level GeForce RTX 5080 from GIGABYTE. This is the best of the best in GIGABYTE’s lineup, other than the water-cooled cards. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G features the highest factory overclock GIGABYTE offers on the RTX 5080, along with a custom LCD screen, WINDFORCE cooling, an additional 120mm ARGB cooling fan, and a robust build with unique aesthetics. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G has an MSRP of $1,629.99.
This is the flagship card from GIGABYTE in the RTX 5080 class, and with that, you are presented with a premium-built video card with attention to detail. Without a doubt, this is one of the biggest cards we have come across. The size is a direct reflection of the massive heatsink, which reached some impressive temperatures during testing. This card is dressed up with just enough RGB and also carries an LCD screen on the top edge. Based on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, this card has 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM.
We tested the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G in our benchmark suite in both raster and ray tracing performance, and overclocked it too. In addition, we took a look at temperature performance with GIGABYTE’s Screen-Cooling-plus accessory 120mm fan.
Performance
Performance in this review was compared to last-generation video cards, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Here, the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER took the top slot. In plain raster performance at 4K, the improvement averaged 15% and 22% if upscaling was added. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER was fully playable in four of seven games without the aid of upscaling. Add one game if overclocked. With upscaling, all the games showed big FPS gains and smooth play. Black MYTH: Wukong was the toughest on all the cards and took everything to rise above 60FPS.
Ray Tracing was hard on all these cards. In fact we had to lower the resolution to 1440p in all our Ray Traced games to achieve playable results. It was surprising to see only between 9 and 11% improvement between the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition. We managed one game of four at playable FPS without upscaling, two if you count overclocking.
Overclocking, Power, and Temp
Overclocking the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G was quite easy. Using the GIGABYTE Control Center software, we were able to adjust GPU core and memory frequencies as well as the power limit. GPU voltage and temperature limits were grayed out. Overall, we were able to add +325MHz in GPU frequency and +650MHz in memory frequency. The power limit was adjustable +25%, and with that, allowed us to attain our results.
The card was very stable and ran no higher than 62C on automatic fans, which were perfectly silent. In two cases, overclocks made the difference in playability and also allowed us to gain an average of a 7% increase in FPS on top of the factory overclock of 5%. This is surely one video card that was meant to be overclocked, in which there are no temperature worries due to the giant heatsink. GIGABYTE gave this video card a generous 25% power limit bump, and that helps us to simply not be power or board limited at all, but rather limited purely by the silicon lottery of the GPU itself.
We also looked at the cooling capabilities of the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER with an added 120mm fan on the back side of the card. GIGABYTE provides the extra fan in the box and calls this “Screen-Cooling-Plus”, essentially adding a push-pull to the end fan on the video card. We tested our card in a number of combinations and found no distinct advantage to adding a fan in our open-test bench environment. In fact, the best cooling result was simply turning up the GPU fans to 75%. The only problem with that solution is noise.
Quite honestly, this video card does a great job of cooling at default and overclocked frequencies with the GPU fans set on automatic, and you can’t hear any additional noise. Perhaps in a cramped case, or one with other very hot components, the fan will be advantageous, but you’ll ultimately still want good case cooling. The fan is a nice addition to have, because you can use it as another case fan as well, or in some other configuration you may desire in your build, so it’s nice to have a free fan for use in your build, and it has RGB.
Final Points
We put the premium GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G through its paces in this review. We liked the design and build quality of this card. This may be the best design we have seen from GIGABYTE. They put a lot of thought into cooling and overclocking performance. You have the ability to push this video card pretty hard and add some benefit in FPS, which can mean better gameplay.
The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G has some really appealing features, like a customizable LCD screen, which is actually useful. Displaying GPU temps and keeping an eye on that with a glance is great to have, and the fact that you can customize it for your build and themes is nice. The additional fan is also a nice touch, though it didn’t show any advantage in our open-bench test; it could vary depending on your build inside a case. As we said above, it is also just nice to have a free fan to use for anything you like. Our only complaint is that the video card itself does not have power for the fan; it is required to plug it into your motherboard or fan hub.
The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G was made to overclock, and it was made to stay cool, incredibly cool in our testing. There’s more performance to unleash here, which is already pretty high by default with the factory overlock. Compared to the previous generation’s performance uplift, it is what it is with the GeForce RTX 5080 GPU this generation. GIGABYTE has tried to elevate the GPU with this design, and it seems GIGABYTE has pushed the GPU pretty far for its capabilities. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G has a high premium of $1,629.99, and with current pricing in flux, this could change over time, so keep an eye on pricing if you are interested. If you are in the market for a GeForce RTX 5080, the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER 16G has it all.
