Zotac RTX 5080 Solid Review

Conclusion

Conclusion

Obviously it’s clear that whichever card you pick between this and the Nvidia you’re getting similar performance. If one thing was clear to us throughout our testing, it is how consistent the Nvidia Blackwell GPU is. Or at least how close these two cards are. Some people might like the thing and subtle nature of the Founders Edition, others prefer the girth of the Solid. Certainly if you like a product to give you the feeling of how much you spent, the Zotac wins by miles.

The English language is almost inadequate at describing how robust the design of the Zotac card is. It’s called the Solid and, oh boy, does it live up to that. Three big fans are what first grab you, especially for an MSRP card, but we’ve also seen triple fan designs dozens of times.  The moment you pick it up the weight is a real surprise. With a metal backplate, and the thick metal frame we showed off on page two, the Solid is like granite. When you add in the thick heatsink with a huge vapour chamber and the ability of Zotac to hit this price point is nothing short of a marvel.

The fan speed changer is exceptionally useful if you live somewhere especially hot. Of course, if you don’t live somewhere hot then just wait a few years whilst AI energy use melts the planet and it will be. What we like is that this switch is normally used to move between slower clock speeds, and thus quieter fans, but on the Zotac Solid the clock speed remains unchanged and the fans speed up. You could, of course, use the Zotac FireStorm utility, but it’s good to have physical solution. More hardware needs onboard controls.

Performance, as we said, is close between the two. It’s worth noting the very low temperatures of the Zotac RTX 5080 Solid though. Plenty of thermal headroom if you want to give it some overclocking love. If you don’t, then that low temperature gets translated to quieter operation. Quiet and fast? Those are our two favourite things.

The Zotac RTX 5080 Solid makes a mockery of its relatively low pricing, with tank-like build quality, great performance and low temperatures. Zotac famously do AMP cards of high repute. They will have to be incredible to justify the extra price beyond aesthetics. This card, the Solid, is £979. It’s incredible value.

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