GPU leaks on RTX 5080 laptops suggest it won't let us down like the 4080 laptops did

We have already seen what appears to be the leaked specs for the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 seemingly visibles that the RTX 5090 may make the biggest generational leap of the entire series. Eventually, the card could be bumped up to 32GB of GDDR7 (up from 24GB of GDDR6X on the 4090), 21,760 CUDA cores, and some pretty big upgrades.

While the same cannot be said for the RTX 5080 desktop, as the leaked specs don't suggest such a big generational improvement, things are looking very good for its laptop counterpart.

RTX 5090 and 5080 laptops could use the same chip

According to Moore's Law is Dead, NVIDIA could use the same GB203 chip for its RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 laptop GPUs. This means we can expect good numbers from the RTX 5080 laptop, especially when it comes to VRAM and CUDA cores – areas where the RTX 4080 laptops weren't all that impressive.

For comparison, NVIDIA reduced the 4080 laptop's VRAM to just 12GB compared to the 16GB 4080 desktop. So you could say that the 4080 laptops were quite a disappointment. Sure, they had the RTX 4080 sticker, but the performance was degraded and the price was high. As for the card itself, it didn't get top marks in our RTX 4080 test, largely due to the poor value for money and the fact that the Super card was added to solve the problem; Laptops didn't get the same super refresh.

However, news of an RTX 5080 or 5080 Ti laptop GPU with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM and 8,192 CUDA cores suggests that the performance difference may not be as big this time. If the recent leaks are true, we can actually expect the GPU to potentially outperform the RTX 4090 laptop GPU as well.

The entire laptop range could take a hit

We've already heard rumors that the RTX 5090 laptop GPU will come with 24GB of VRAM, and given recent speculation that the 5080 laptops will also get a VRAM increase to 16GB, it's possible that NVIDIA will VRAM has increased across its laptop lineup. This would be a really good step up as some 40-series laptop GPUs could be considered mediocre due to compromises. Sure, they performed exceptionally well in all AAA titles, but the gap between them and their desktop counterparts is obvious.

With 16GB of VRAM and over 8000 CUDA cores, the RTX 5080 (or 5080 Ti) laptop could potentially eclipse its predecessor, but we still have to make some pretty bold assumptions if we want to speculate about how much better this one is Laptops are will be.

According to MLID, if NVIDIA underclocks the memory bandwidth of the GB203 chip to 28Gbps for the 5080 (or 5080 Ti) laptop, paired with the 16GB of VRAM, this should be enough to beat the RTX 4080 12GB laptop by a solid 50 % to beat in overall performance. Not only that, it also means about 10 to 20% better performance than the RTX 4090 16GB notebook, and if we're lucky, it might even match the performance of a desktop RTX 4080 or 4070 Ti Super.

Of course, all of these speculations are based on the fact that NVIDIA will not go the route of efficiency and reduce memory bandwidth. In this case, the performance numbers may not look as appealing as they do now.