The first reviews of Nvidia RTX 5090 video cards have been released. Not everything is perfect

Foreign journalists have published reviews of the latest Nvidia RTX 5090 video cards.

Overall, most people praise the news. However, there are nuances, including cost, that are worth paying special attention to.

Let’s figure out what they said about the video card.

1. Edge

Experts from The Verge shared some of their first opinions. The following are excerpts from their text.

Key Features and Performance

• Hardware improvements: 32GB of VRAM and a smaller Founders Edition design that allows the card to be stored in a smaller form factor.

• power: New DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation technology, which can leverage frame management by more than 8 times in some games, making the RTX 5090 a leader in 4K gaming.

In the publication’s tests, the RTX 5090 was 28% faster than the RTX 4090 in 4K without using DLSS and 43% faster in games that support DLSS 4 (for example, Cyberpunk 2077). At 1440p, the performance boost averages 18%, but it’s not as big a jump as the RTX 4090 had over the RTX 3090.

The graphics card consumes up to 578 W, which is 125 W more than the RTX 4090. Nvidia recommends a power supply of 1000 W, which is a lot for modern PCs.

The cooling system has been redesigned: dual fans prevent air circulation. The maximum temperature during the group’s tests is 70°C, which is slightly higher than the RTX 4090.

New Multi Frame Generation technology uses AI to create additional frames, increase frame rates and improve image quality. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with ray tracing, performance increased from 34 to 211 frames per second.

DLSS 4 also fixes artifacting issues and reduces latency by 6ms.

If the high price or power consumption is causing offers, you can change the RTX 5080 or the lower-end RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti models, which will release in February.

2. Volume hardware

Tom’s Hardware journalists had more mixed impressions of the new product.

Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50 series video cards have introduced new technologies that require separate testing. One of the main ones for gamers is the new DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation (MFG). This requires new benchmarking methods, and importantly, spending time playing games with DLSS 4 enabled to better understand how they look and feel.

So generating frames with DLSS 3 is not a magic solution that makes everything faster and better. The technology for introducing delay and it all depends on the video card, game, settings and monitor used. With MFG, which can double the number of frames the AI ​​generates, the situation becomes even more confusing. For example, if MFG runs at 240 frames per second, this means that inputs will only be processed at 60 frames per second, so while MFG can make games smoother, there may be some lag to the experience.

Here are the characteristics of the RTX 5090 and its predecessors – the top-end Nvidia video cards of the latest generations.

The specs alone are enough to understand the performance potential of the RTX 5090.

It has 33% more streaming multiprocessors (SM) than the RTX 4090 generation version, more than twice as many SMs as the 3090, and 2.5 times more SMs than the RTX 2080 Ti, which launched the tracing boom rays and AI. Just as important, it has 33% more VRAM than the 4090, and GDDR7 is 33% faster than GDDR6X on the 4090, resulting in a 78% increase in memory bandwidth.

But it’s not just performance and features that have increased. The official starting price for the RTX 5090 is $1,999, which is $400 more than the RTX 4090. This is likely due to high demand for the 4090, with cards often selling for $2,000 and above in the past two years.

The RTX 5090 Founders Edition is downsized to two slots, but retains the same dimensions as the 4090 FE.

Journalists do not yet support something in the government to compete with 5090 in the near future. And that’s just for games. For AI work that can use the new FP4 number formats, Nvidia claims the 5090 can be three times faster than the 4090. However, more visual and rigorous tests will come later, and additional time will be needed.

3. IGNITION

The authors of IGN contributed the news, but urge you to refrain from purchasing it for now. But they got the most informative review.

In many cases, the performance increase over the RTX 4090 is not as great as expected, especially without the need to generate DLSS frames. However, with Nvidia’s new generation of DLSS for upscaling and frame generation, we’re seeing leaps in image quality and performance that feel much slower than next-gen graphics cards.

What an Nvidia RTX 5090 upgrade will be like for a user depends on what games they play, at what resolutions, and whether they are willing to use Algorithm II to generate additional frames. For many people deciding on a sub-4K monitor with a sub-240Hz refresh rate, this upgrade won’t be particularly worthwhile.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell architecture and is designed for high-performance computers such as data centers and AI supercomputers. This gives an idea of ​​what makes the RTX 5090 particularly good, but Nvidia isn’t forgetting about the non-II aspects of the card either.

With the RTX 5090, Nvidia has found a way to increase the number of streaming multiprocessors (SMs) in the same number of GPCs (graphics processing clusters), resulting in more CUDA cores – 21,760 compared to 16,384 in the RTX 4090. This represents a 32% increase. compared to the previous generation, and this is where the main gaming performance lies.

Each SM also features its own Tensor cores and single RT cores, just like previous models. This means the RTX 5090 has 680 Tensor cores and 170 RT cores, while the RTX 4090 has 512 and 128 respectively. The fifth-generation Tensor core is specifically designed to improve AI performance, with the addition of support for FP4 operations, which should reduce the dependence of AI calculations on video memory.

Due to the RTX 5090 requiring 575W of power, which is much more than the RTX 4090, power efficiency is not a priority for this graphics card.

Consequently, greater energy consumption implies greater heat, requiring more powerful cooling systems. Looking at the RTX 4090 and even the RTX 3090, one would expect the RTX 5090 to be even bigger and more awkward. However, it turned out to be more compact. Nvidia was able to make a 575W graphics card in a two-slot case with two fans, and it worked.

During testing, the temperature did not exceed 86°C, despite the peak power consumption of 578 W. This is a high temperature, but not so high that it causes throttling, which is important.

Due to the new Tensor cores being more efficient, Nvidia has moved the entire DLSS algorithm to a Transformer Neural Network (TNN) instead of a traditional Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). This change doesn’t necessarily improve frame quality when DLSS is enabled, but Nvidia says it improves image quality and will reduce components.

Nvidia hasn’t just made technical improvements inside DLSS. The team also introduced Multi-Frame Generation, which makes the Frame Gen request introduced in the RTX 4090 more efficient and smoother, resulting in more frames for each image rendered. This significantly increases the frame rate, but the feature should only be enabled if you already have a good frame rate.

The design of the card has also changed, the circuit board (PCB) has been made smaller and placed in the center of the video card. The fans are located on the sides of the board and effectively cool the card by forcing air through the top of the case, and the exit is possible through the fan housing.

The new design also allows the graphics card to fit into smaller PC cases, a significant improvement over current generations.

When Nvidia announced the RTX 5090, it claimed that the card could deliver 8x faster performance. While this figure isn’t entirely accurate, the RTX 5090 does deliver very high frame rates in the most demanding games, but not at the expense of rendering. The real improvements lie in the RTX 5090’s ability to cap additional frames to increase frame rates.

DLSS 4 is Multi-Frame Generation, a version of the frame generation technology first introduced in DLSS 3 and RTX 4090. This technology uses a new artificial intelligence management processor (AMP) that significantly speeds up the frame generation process and requires 30% less memory. This process also significantly increases latency, making it effective for improving performance.

The RTX 5090 performs excellently in 3DMark, with the exception of productivity increase by 42% compared to the RTX 4090. However, when testing in games, the problem with the processor becomes obvious, especially at 4K resolution. The RTX 5090 is CPU limited in most games, and the upgrade doesn’t provide a significant performance boost for users who already have a high-end graphics card.

Total War: Warhammer 3 – It does not support ray tracing or upscaling and provides a clear view of rasterization performance. The RTX 5090 is impressive here, delivering 147fps, while the RTX 4090 manages 107fps. This is a 35% improvement and is close to the guaranteed performance difference demonstrated in 3DMark. However, this is still far from the 67% performance difference between the RTX 4090 and 3090.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage – a strange game. For some reason, when this game was first launched, the RTX 5090 delivered terrible performance for the test. Its operating frequency was limited to 772 MHz, and it produced about 50 frames per second at 4K resolution. The reporter managed to work around the issue, but even when it was resolved, the 5090 only managed 172 fps, which is lower than the RTX 4090’s 183 fps. To make matters worse, the frame rate was very slow with microfreezes. This is most likely driver error and should therefore be considered a conclusion.

Black Myth: Wukonglike Cyberpunk 2077– These are extremely demanding games that will load any video card to its limit. However, the RTX 5090 averaged 104 fps at 4K with custom settings and 40% DLSS. RTX 4090 with the same components ordered 84 frames per second. This is a 20% improvement when using the RTX 5090.

IN Forza Horizon 5 The RTX 5090 averaged 216 fps compared to the RTX 4090’s 210 fps, which is actually within the margin of error.

Overall, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is the most powerful graphics card on the market, but for most users it will only be relevant in the future when games can take full advantage of its capabilities.