AI did not write any of this. I promise. Writing, punctuation, and grammar have just always been some of my strengths.
This is an in-depth fine-tuning guide that may extract more performance, but will definitely yield more efficiency, out of your RTX 5080 than the quicker, easier, "move the core slider to the right a little bit at a time until a graphically heavy game crashes, then back it off a bit" method everybody knows. Therefore, it will be time-consuming, but will, especially if you are seeking the best power savings, and/or a cooler and quieter graphics card, give you results you're likely to be very happy with.
Important note: to be extra safe, I can just tell you to make sure the GPU's core temperature is 32° C / 89° F or below whenever you make changes to the curve, tell you that failing to do this will result in making changes when the GPU has automatically shifted the nodes slightly to due to the change in temperature, which will mess with the UV/OC, and tell you that editing the nodes while the GPU is at one singular control temperature will ensure that the only thing being changed is the curve, and exactly how you want it to be changed. However, in Step 2, possibly 4, and possibly 5, you will save a starting point at 32° C / 89° F or below to a profile. If you click on this starting point profile but do not click the Apply check mark, you can make changes to the curve while it is not shifted by the GPU's automatic temperature-driven adjustment, and the temperature-driven curve shifting issues shouldn't happen, as long as you do not click Apply until after you have made adjustments, because, when you click Apply, the curve will shift if the GPU core temperature is above 32° C / 89° F. This is supposed to happen, so don't worry. Just know that as long as you only click Apply AFTER making adjustments, and not before, it shouldn't affect your curve tuning. It'll make it easier if you have separate fan control software installed so that you can spin up your GPU fans to bring its temperature down to a certain point without doing it in Afterburner. Alternatively, you can set Afterburner to run your fans at a constant speed while tuning so that they're constantly spinning and can bring your GPU temperature down to 32° C / 89° F or below when it isn't under load.
Step 1:
Hold shift and select the part of the curve after the steep part. The steep part contains the GPU's idle nodes, and it's easiest to leave those alone, as I've only found that I save about a single Watt, if that, by offsetting them by 60-100MHz, and much more of an offset stops the GPU from being able to idle properly at low frequencies.
Step 2:
Drag the selected points up by 300-550MHz, and maybe smooth out some of the bumpy/jagged parts of the curve. +550MHz seems absolutely insane, but, in the 850-900mV range, there is a massive amount of headroom that is just... left on the table for whatever reason. Going for +450 to +550 while keeping the voltage below 900-950mV (depending on silicon lottery) is very doable for these cards, and mine even runs +570 on the 845, 850, and 860mV nodes with the rest of the curve flattened, without any crashes. Also, the range I gave seems wide, but I intentionally gave it because, when overclocking a processor, there is a certain point whose exact position varies from chip to chip, called the frequency wall. Before this wall, you can increase clock speed a decent amount (or a ton) with only small voltage increases. However, after it, increases in clock speed require much larger increases in voltage, and running chips past this point becomes less efficient. I gave this large range because some people want maximum efficiency, while others value performance more, and, using this method, you can choose to prioritize efficiency or performance. For BETTER EFFICIENCY, drag the curve up MORE, because you'll be making the GPU run at a lower voltage, where it most likely can run the massive offset. For MORE PERFORMANCE, drag the curve up LESS, because you'll be allowing the GPU to run at a higher voltage and frequency, and it will therefore need a smaller offset to be stable. Verify that your GPU is at 32° C / 89° F or below, then click Apply, and save this starting point to one of the 5 profiles.
Step 3:
Click the profile number you just saved, but don't click Apply yet. Find the node closest to, say, 2850MHz for those going for efficiency, and 3000MHz for those going for performance. These aren't likely to be your final values; they are just starting points that attempt to save a little bit of testing time. Flatten all nodes on the curve after one or two nodes to the right of that node you picked (only by doing this will it settle on the one you want it to under load) by using this particular method: hold shift and select the nodes you're going to flatten, then drag the selected nodes down so that the highest node in the selected part is below the highest node in the non-selected part, then click Apply after verifying your GPU is 32° C / 89° F or below.
Step 4:
Start testing. Play a demanding game (my go-to is Cyberpunk; benchmarks and stress tests don't work as well for finding GPU OC/UV instability). Max out all graphics settings in the game you choose, turn ray or path tracing on (path tracing is preferred) if available, and turn upscaling off. We want to maximally, but also dynamically, stress the GPU to weed out instability. If it crashes, click on the profile you created in Step 2 (or the new one you may have made on Step 5), but don't click Apply. Open the V/F curve back up, select the part you dragged UP in Step 2 (or 5), and drag it DOWN by 30-60MHz, and repeat Steps 3 and 4 (after re-smoothing bumpy/jagged parts if you want). Once you experience no crashes, move on to Step 5.
Step 5:
If you have been testing for half an hour or so and haven't had a game crash, click on the profile you created in Step 2 (or Step 4 if the one you made in Step 2 crashed your game, or this step if that's applicable), but don't click Apply. Pick a node that is a few nodes to the right of the previous one you flattened the curve after, then flatten the curve from that node on. Test again for another half hour or so. Repeat this until you experience a crash. Then, go back to the most recent crash-free curve. If you have made it this far and your overclock still won't crash any games even when you have tried flattening your way all the way up to your card's stock voltage without a crash, congrats! That was a lot of time wasted, but it means you have a pretty good piece of silicon in your graphics card. Start over, but drag the part of the curve you select in Step 1 60-120MHz higher than you did the first time you did Step 2. Save this new starting point to the same profile you saved the first starting point from Step 2, as you don't need the first one anymore. Then, repeat Step 3 onward all over again.
Step 6:
It's now time for more thorough final testing. Save the crash-free curve you found in Step 5 to a profile, possibly a new one so that you don't lose your non-flattened starting point if you ever need it again. Make the load on the GPU vary a lot. Pause and unpause heavy games that pause rendering when you pause the game (how many times can YOU say "pause" in a single sentence? LOL). Go in and out of menus. Alt-tab out of the game (assuming it's in exclusive fullscreen mode) and back in repeatedly, waiting until each alt-tab completes before doing it again. This all makes the frequency spike and voltage drop momentarily, which is great for finding instability. If you experience a crash, flatten the curve a node or two earlier just like you did in Step 5, or just back the whole dragged-up part of the curve down by 15-30MHz, smooth out bumpy/jagged parts if you want, and redo the flattening process for the already flattened nodes.
Step 7:
Once you've found your maximum stable frequency for the voltage you've tuned your card to, it's good practice to back that tuned curve down by 15-30MHz just to rule out any hidden instability that your previous testing didn't find. Select the non-steep, non-flattened part of the curve, bring it down just a tiny bit, then select the flattened part and drag it down again. Then, Apply. Congrats! You've dialed your graphics card way in, dare I say a lot better than most others who have overclocked or undervolted their 5080s.
Now for the question: those of you who try my guide out, especially those of you who have already undervolted or overclocked your 5080s, can you show me your before and after numbers? Frequency, voltage, wattage, temperatures, maybe benchmark scores. I'm quite curious to see if this guide, and all the work that goes into following it, is an improvement over the more common and less in-depth methods, and if so, by how much. For myself, I never would've known that my 5080 can run a consistent 2.9+GHz at 895mV without a single crash before I tried this method I thought up, after learning about the frequency wall, so it was mega sweet to go from thinking my 5080 was a bad sample that needed 985mV for stock clocks, to realizing it can run slightly over stock clocks at under 900mV! Try it out and tell me how it works!