Graphics card enthusiast TrashBench has created a video pitching the venerable flagship of the Pascal era against the ‘turnip’ of the Blackwell era, with unexpected results. The ‘Voltage first. Questions later.’ Aussie explains that he set out to “overclock a GTX 1080 Ti hard enough to embarrass Nvidia’s new RTX 5050.” However, things didn’t turn out as planned, with the 5050 grasping an unexpected triumph both at stock and with its impressive overclockability.
GTX 1080 Ti vs RTX 5050 – 3300MHz CHAOS & a 17% FPS Gain! – YouTube 
Watch On
TrashBench’s plans regarding the GTX 1080 Ti didn’t get off to the best start with two samples of this old flagship having to be cast aside before finding one that could muster anything more than stock performance. Apparently, it took “days” to get the selected card to perform, with fine-tuning of curves, offsets, drivers, and APIs used – and a custom coolant loop – to rouse this respected champ of old.
We all get old, but TrashBench says that there was a brick-wall limit at 2.2 GHz for the best 1080 Ti he had on hand. Sadly, there are only so many rocket pods you can fit to an old silicon Zimmer frame before it topples over. At this stage of the video, it is admitted that the original “1080 Ti beats 5050 idea was dead.” Actually, things would be turned upside down.
You may like
-
Nvidia RTX 5050 benchmarks reveal close contest with RTX 4060 -
![]()
After another review-less launch, the first RTX 5050 benchmarks are here -
Crazed modder straps DIY copper waterpipes to GTX 1060, sets world overclocking records in 12600KF category
Plucky little RTX 5050 overclocked to 3.3 GHz
Attempting to give the RTX 5050 a fighting chance, TrashBench also boosted this little card’s cooling far beyond stock. As the water block he had was too large for the tiny 5050, a tower CPU cooler was applied to the GPU, with a fat fan attached.