GeForce RTX 5090 performance
The chart shows the relative averages based on the results of testing video cards in 24 projects. As you can see, in Full HD the advantage over its predecessor is only 11%, in 1440p the GeForce RTX 5090 is 21% ahead of the previous generation model, and in 4K the difference increases to 35%. As for the ratio of power between the GeForce RTX 5090 and AMD's most powerful graphics card at the moment, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB, the advantage of the new NVIDIA product in 4K mode is as much as 75%.
It's unlikely that GeForce RTX 5090 will be considered as an option for gaming in 1080p/1440p modes at all. This makes very little practical sense.
Games with ray tracing on GeForce RTX 5090
Special attention to modes with activated ray tracing technology. The updated architecture provides for the improvement of these blocks, which is confirmed by the relevant 3DMark tests. What about it in real games.
There is also significant progress here, even if we compare the performance to that of the RTX 4090, which until recently seemed unattainable for other graphics cards. Depending on the resolution, at maximum RT quality settings, the new GeForce RTX 5090 has a 19-32% advantage over its predecessor.
DLSS 4
A separate nuance is the support of DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation technology. This area requires further study with comparisons of picture quality and latency. The first results are quite impressive, but we need to go deeper into the details.
Heating and noise level
For the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, NVIDIA engineers have developed an extraordinary cooling system with dual through-blow, a miniature PCB, a massive evaporation chamber, and an extensive heat pipe system. This concept made it possible to squeeze the GeForce RTX 5090 with a TDP of 575 W into a two-slot design.
To appreciate the work of the designers, you just need to look at the photo, where the RTX 4090 (TDP 450 W) and the new RTX 5090 are placed side by side. However, it's interesting to see how the original cooler copes with its task.
At rest, the cooling system fans stop, and the CO operates in passive mode with zero noise. Under gaming load, the GB202 GPU heated up to 77C. GDDR7 memory chips warmed up to 94C. At the same time, the fan speed increased to 1673 rpm.
The noise level went up to 40.1 dB. Therefore, the reference RTX 5090 is slightly noisier than its reference predecessor GeForce RTX 4090 (35.1 dB).
GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition Power consumption
The GeForce RTX 5090 specs indicate that the card has a Total Graphics Power (TGP) of 575 watts. This is 28% higher than its predecessor, the RTX 4090. The difference is quite significant. To connect additional power, the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition has one 12VHPWR (12+4) connector, which allows you to supply up to 600 watts to the adapter. The video card can potentially receive another 75W from the PCI-E x16 slot (even on a non-ATX 3.0 platform).
NVIDIA assures that after some design changes to the 12VHPWR connectors, there should be no more of the connector melting issues that occurred in the beginning.
During our tests, the power consumption of the GeForce RTX 5090, even at rest, turned out to be higher than the usual 30W for NVIDIA graphics cards. This is a rather strange situation, and it may be fixed later.
Under gaming load, the new product actually needed up to 587 watts.
Overclocking the GeForce RTX 5090
During the overclocking experiments, the GPU frequency was increased by 325 MHz. The acceleration of GDDR7 memory chips is currently limited to +375 MHz.
The additional increase in GPU/memory operating frequencies resulted in a ~6% performance boost. In general, not so bad when it comes to a video card of this level.
GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards will go on sale in a week, on January 30. The recommended price for the US market is $1999. Original models from partners are likely to be even more expensive. And the limited availability of offers will additionally affect the actual retail price. Nevertheless, we expect GeForce RTX 5090 to appear in Ukraine in the near future.