ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16GB OC Edition review: The best-looking RTX 5080 card

With NVIDIAs’ newest GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics cards officially launched and available for purchase (for the lucky ones), AIB partners such as ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI released their own RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs as well.

ASUS, in particular, also took this next-gen release the chance to add the new ROG Astral line to their graphics cards line-up alongside the existing ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Prime series. Replacing the ROG Strix as the flagship line to align and be consistent with their top-of-the-line Maximus and Crosshair motherboards branding, Astral RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards are also ASUS’ first to feature a quad-fan design.

We saw the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition at CES 2025 earlier this month but now that we have the card in our hands, let’s take a closer look at it.

A completely new design

Although the inclusion of the fourth fan is the most visually apparent design change and brings with it various cooling improvements, which ASUS says brings 20% more airflow and pressure than the three-fan ROG Strix graphics cards, other design changes have also taken place internally, with the aim of improving cooling. For one, there’s the phase-change thermal pad. With properties akin to liquid metal, the thermal pad can liquefy based on the change in temperature of the GPU. ASUS also claims that as the material liquefies, it increases its surface contact between the GPU and the heatsink, allowing for better heat dissipation.

Phase-change materials are not new as they’ve been used in other industries, as well as a cooling solution in more enthusiast tech products. But it is more costly and more delicate to apply. Other features include an ASUS-patented vapour chamber design with milled pathways, and a Dual BIOS switch.

And it bears mentioning that ASUS intends for the ROG Astral to be aimed mainly at enthuasiasts and overclockers. The graphics cards have 50-amp MOSFETs to allow for more overcloking headroom (up to 35%, ASUS says), and include a protective coating on the PCB to protect it against short circuits caused by moisture or dust. The ROG Astral cards also support advanced features in ASUS's GPU Tweak III software, including Thermal Map, Power Detector+ which monitors the connection between the graphics card and the power supply, and a mileage tracker to keep track of power usage. 

Speaking of size, this RTX 5080 card isn’t small and occupies 3.8 slots, almost double that of the RTX 5080 Founders Edition. It’s also immensely heavy, thanks to an ultra-rigid metal frame, fan shroud, and backplate with a slick new design. But there’s no denying that it looks strikingly gorgeous. In fact, I’d say it’s the best-looking third-party RTX 5080 card out there right now. Unsurprisingly, it also does not come cheap. A quick scan around Techyard shows it being listed for S$2,699.

Gaming performance

To benchmark the ROG Astral card, I used the same list of games used to test the RTX 5080 Founders Edition (FE). I’ve also switched the card BIOS to “P” mode, ensuring the card’s fastest settings are used. Since the card is so new, I’ll compare it directly with the FE card. Unlike many of AIB partners’ cards, NVIDIA’s own Founders Edition are not overclocked and so makes for the best reference card as a comparison point.

We are also using the updated same test rig that was used to benchmark the GeForce RTX 5090 FE and comes with the following specifications:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• ROG Maximus Z890 Hero
• Samsung 990 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM 4K Gaming Monitor

As with the RTX 5080 FE review, we want to focus on the 4K performance numbers. For gaming at lower resolutions, you'd really want to wait and get the RTX 5070 Ti / 5070 instead but I've included results from 1080p and 1440p benchmarks below anyway. I’m also only benchmarking the raw power of the ROG Astral RTX 5080 card without DLSS switched on – since we already know the benefits with DLSS turned on, and any differences in framerates for supported games between the same class of GPU cards is going to be extremely negligible.

In real-world gaming performances at 1440p and 2160p (4K), the ROG Astral card consistently outperforms the Founders Edition reference card. Which isn’t surprising, considering that it does have a faster boost clock speed. Of course, taking these numbers into context the improvements in frame-rates are really, really, marginal at best especially at 1440p. But at 4K, every gains count especially in more intensive games like Returnal and Cyberpunk 2077 and the ROG Astral does not disappoint – edging out the RTX 5080 Founders Edition in all games benchmarked.

Cooling performance is the real differentiator when comparing custom cards from AIB partners. With a higher boost clock right out of the box, it’s no surprise that these cards’ GPU chips draw more power than NVIDIA's reference Founders Edition card. It's also no surprise to see the ROG Astral card, with more fans and RGB lights, drawing more power.

Final thoughts

With a price tag of S$2,699, the ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16GB OC Edition is one of, if not the most, pricey card out from the RTX 5080 class of GPU. But it’s worth noting that this launch price is pretty close to the predecessor ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 (even if it’s a different class now), which debuted at $2,639. That said, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 Super launched for $2,109. Perhaps then, we could see a cheaper “Super” version of a ROG Astral GeForce RTX5080 Super if there ever will be one?

This is the first non-FE RTX 5080 card that we’ve got in our hands, and while we don’t quite know how it will fare against competing cards from the likes of Gigabyte and MSI yet, we can assume that the differences in performance will very likely be marginal – if we look back at past results from the RTX 30 and RTX 40 Series. How you’ll pick a card from these brands then, will not likely be performance-related reason and more to do with your PC components ecosystem and/or, budget. If you already own a ROG Maximus or Crossfire motherboard, then the Astral RTX 5080 is a no brainer choice. It’s also easily the best-looking premium RTX 5080 card. But for those that enjoying mixing up brands or have a tighter budget, I think it’s prudent to consider cards from other brands.

The ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16GB OC Edition is available at Amazon, Shopee, Newegg and Techyard.

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