Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition Review

Today is the day when we can finally lift the lid on all the juicy benchmarks for the new Blackwell-based RTX 5090. This is a card that has been hyped up to new levels even before its official announcement at NVIDIA’s keynote at CES at the start of the month. As the new flagship, with some bold claims as to its performance, are we going to see a huge uplift in rasterisation and ray tracing performance, or are we solely going to have to rely on upscaling through the way of DLSS? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out! Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition I won’t go into the packaging and design of the card here or what’s included with a Founders card, as we have an unboxing that went live just a few days ago showing that all off. If you’ve not seen that yet, then definitely head over and check it out. I will go over the aesthetics, at least somewhat, of the card and the specs because on paper, things look pretty tasty. So let's talk about some of the important specs quickly as being a new architecture, it’s not so much an apples-to-apples comparison, because while we do see a 33% increase in CUDA cores, now at 21,760, and the same in Texture Mapping Units, now up at 680, the render output units see a smaller 9% increase up to 192. Now where things get somewhat interesting is that the base clock actually comes in slower on the RTX 5090 by almost 10%, now sitting at 2017MHz, and the same with the boost clock, which sees a 4% hit, now at 2407MHz. Key Features Blackwell Architecture: The new Blackwell architecture boasts significant improvements in performance and efficiency. AI-Powered Rendering: Features like neural shaders and DLSS 4 leverage AI for groundbreaking graphics rendering. DLSS 4: This technology uses AI to generate more frames, leading to up to 8x performance boosts compared to traditional rendering. RTX Neural Shaders: Introduce AI networks into programmable shaders, enabling film-quality materials and lighting in games. RTX Neural Faces: Renders high-quality digital faces in real-time using AI. Reflex 2 with Frame Warp: Reduces latency in games by up to 75% for a more responsive experience. Autonomous Game Characters: New NVIDIA ACE technologies allow for AI-powered non-player characters (NPCs) that can perceive, plan, and act more like human players. AI Foundation Models: Support for NVIDIA NIM microservices enables users to build AI agents and assistants on their RTX AI PCs. FP4 Precision: Boosts AI image generation performance and allows for running generative AI models locally. Enhanced NVIDIA Broadcast App: Includes new AI-powered features like Studio Voice and Virtual Key Light for improved live streaming. GDDR7 One area that NVIDIA has focussed on and sees a huge increase is in memory. Not only do we see a 33% increase, now up to 32GB, but we’re now sporting GDDR7, compared to GDDR6X on the Ada Lovelace-based flagship RTX 4090 and now using a 512-bit bus, which is quite a step up from the 384-bit interface seen on the 4090. Nvidia Also being a new architecture, we also see an improved fabrication process, now using TSMC’s 4NP process node, which allows for a die size increase over the 4090 of 22% at 744mm2, which also means another 21% more transistors can be packed in, now coming in at a staggering 92.2 billion, making up the GB202-400-A1 core and coming in as NVIDIA’s first consumer-grade GPU that utilises the PCI-Express 5.0 x16 interface. We also now have the next generation of both RT cores and Tensor cores to give us the very best raytracing performance, but the ability to utilise the latest DLSS4 technology, of course, in games that support it. With AMD seemingly leaving the high-end market, it does look like NVIDIA may have this market completely sewn up with the RTX 5090, especially if the specs we’ve just gone through translate to real-world performance, which is why we’re all here. These specs, while they do sound impressive, do also come at a cost, as the RTX 5090 sees an MSRP of $1999, so understandably won’t be for everyone, but with the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070 on the horizon, at least this is a taste of what’s to come. A Closer Look In terms of the look, NVIDIA has clearly put a lot of thought into it, and from a first glance, you’ll notice some big changes from the 40 series founders cards, with the main key points being the fact that the 5090 comes in as a dual-slot card, which is quite the difference from the likes of the RTX 4090, with the only high-end 40 series dual-slot card I had ever seen, being the X3 from INNO3D with their 4080. The design, at least in terms of size, matches the flagship from the last generation at 304mm in length and 137mm in width, but that ability to shrink down the thickness to just 2 slots is really going to open up possibilities for those wanting to utilise this beast of a card inside a small form factor case. However, I’m sure many will worry about the cooling potential considering there’s no ventilation on the IO of the card at all, though I think it’s safe to say that NVIDIA typically fairs well with their founder's design. One thing that I did notice when unboxing it the other day was that there’s very little NVIDIA branding on the card, with only a small Nividia logo on the frame, which is something we’ve seen a lot with PC components as of late, from cases to coolers, so it seems to be a bit of a growing trend to give off a clean vibe to the product, and with the 5090, I will admit, it works. We still have an LED light-up GeForce RTX logo, with now, an angled 12VHPWR connector. A quick reminder that a good quality adapter does come in the box for those who don’t have a native connector, allowing you to convert from 4 PCI-Express 8-pin connectors. There are also 3 DisplayPort connectors and a single HDMI, and beyond that, there’s not a huge amount else to talk about without drilling down further into the cooler, which now has changed things up with its 2 large fans that help push air directly through the cooler, and across the PCB and its associated cooling. The PCB has actually been shrunk down on the 5090 in terms of physical size and sees the major components make contact with a 3D Vapor Chamber cooler with heatpipes that span the length of the large heatsinks and this is what, according to NVIDIA has allowed them to develop their double flow-through cooling system, which helps keep temperatures under control while remaining quiet during operation. Of course, we’ll be testing that in this review, and this is something that I know will be of huge interest to a lot of people considering we now have a total graphics power of 575 Watts. However, NVIDIA has still kept the thermals conservative with a maximum GPU temperature of 90 degrees, matching that of its predecessor. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (GPU) Motherboard Gigabyte B650E AORUS MASTER Buy Now Processor Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review Buy Now GPU Changes Per Review RAM 32 Corsair VENGEANCE RGB 6000MHz CL30 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H9 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. A Plague Tale: Requiem Alan Wake II Baldur's Gate 3 Black Myth Wukong CS2 Cyberpunk 2077 F1 24 Fortnite Hogwarts Legacy Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Starfield War Thunder Resolutions 1080 (Full HD) 1440 4K Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content with simply reading total system power draw, we now run F1 24 for an hour loop and measure power draw at the end of the loop for the most accurate measurement that represents real-world gameplay experience. Temperatures We take temperature readings after the same hour-long F1 24 loop with no other background programs running, again to simulate a real-world gaming experience. 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme 3DMark Time Spy Extreme is a DirectX 12 benchmark test that pushes even the most powerful gaming PCs to their limits. It renders at a demanding 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) and includes a CPU test designed to measure the performance of high-end processors with 8 or more cores. This makes it an ideal benchmark for evaluating the latest graphics cards and top-of-the-line CPUs, especially when considering demanding tasks like gaming at 4K resolution and beyond. So first let's look at a synthetic benchmark, considering we spent the last couple of weeks retesting 64 graphics cards in 3DMark to bring you some content, so you can check that content out to see how your current GPU ranks if you have something lower-end that what we’re showing today. For now though, the RTX 5090 come in with a performance uplift of 19% over the RTX 4090, which is nice to see, but initial testing I think will leave consumers expecting a little more though what’s interesting is how the graphics score increases by 34%, showing that maybe our CPU, even with a 9800X3D is being pushed to its limits but being a synthetic test, gaming may show something different. A Plague Tale: Requiem A Plague Tale: Requiem is a stealth-survival horror adventure that serves as a direct sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence. Players continue the harrowing journey of Amicia and Hugo de Rune, two young siblings navigating a plague-ridden France in the 14th century. The game features stunning visuals, intense action sequences, and a gripping narrative that explores themes of family, resilience, and the darkness within. Starting things off with A Plague Tale: Requiem at 1440p and the RTX 5090 comes in at the top of our chart with a 16% lead over its predecessor the RTX 4090 and packs a more impressive 48% better result than AMD’s best offering, the 7900 XTX, though it did show some anomalies with its 1% low figure, which you’ll start to see a bit of a trend with as we move through the games. As we increase the resolution to 4K, we find the lead over the 4090 increase to a much healthier 36%, while AMD now trails behind quite dramatically as the 5090 comes in with a 72% lead, and the 1% low figures seemingly manage to sort themselves out. Alan Wake II Alan Wake II is a survival horror game and the long-awaited sequel to Remedy Entertainment's cult classic, Alan Wake. This time, the story takes a darker turn, delving deeper into the psychological and supernatural elements that made the original so compelling. Players can expect a chilling atmosphere, intense combat encounters, and a mind-bending narrative that will keep them on the edge of their seats. As we move onto Alan Wake at 1440p, we again, with no surprise, see the RTX 5090 topping our standings. It holds a 24% lead over the previous generation flagship, though again, while the average does increase at a somewhat decent rate, the 1% low, while it increases, is at a much lower level of just under 9%, so it does seem by looking at this trend, that optimisations could be made, though with that aside, it does still mean that we see 60% more performance than the RDNA3 based 7900 XTX. As we move up to 4K, the lead increases thanks to those next-generation RT cores, which see the 5090 push out another 28% more frames than the RTX 4090, though it still does suffer in the lows compared to other cards tested, while still granting 77% more performance over AMD’s best showing. Baldur's Gate 3 Baldur's Gate 3 is a highly acclaimed role-playing game set in the Forgotten Realms universe. Developed by Larian Studios, it offers a deep and immersive experience with turn-based combat, intricate storylines, and a vast world to explore. Players can create their own custom characters or choose from a roster of origin characters, each with their own unique backstories and motivations. In Baldur’s Gate 3, at 1440p, the framerate is already at a pretty high level, and due to that, the gains aren’t anywhere near as good as what we’ve seen in other titles, with just a 15% uplift in performance over the RTX 4090, though it does seem that the 1% lows have improved as this now has a 25% increase over the Ada flagship for comparison. Speaking of comparisons, the new Blackwell-based GPU does come in 41% faster, which sounds great, until you start looking at the price disparity, which we will look at a little later on. At 4K, things improve somewhat, but probably not to the levels that consumers would expect, as we see a 20% increase in performance over the card it's replacing, but sadly, we’re plagued with issues in the 1% lows yet again as it falls 10% behind the 4090 in the lows but does manage to keep a steady 57% increase in the averages over the 7900 XTX. Black Myth Mukong Black Myth Wukong is an action role-playing game inspired by the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West." Developed by Game Science, it features stunning graphics, challenging combat encounters, and a captivating story based on the legendary Monkey King. Players can expect a unique blend of Chinese mythology and action-packed gameplay. In Black Myth Wukong at 1440p, we see a 22% uplift in performance over the RTX 4090 and a further 59% improvement over the 7900 XTX. While 4K improves upon it further with a 32% improvement in performance over the predecessor, and an impressive 78% over the RDNA3-based 7900 XTX. CS2 CS2 (Counter-Strike 2) is the highly anticipated sequel to the iconic tactical first-person shooter, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Developed by Valve, it promises to revolutionise the competitive FPS scene with updated graphics, refined gameplay mechanics, and new features. Players can expect the same intense tactical gameplay that has made the franchise so popular, but with a fresh coat of paint and exciting new additions. In CS2, at 1440p, we have the worst result we’ve seen so far, but let me explain. CS2 is extremely CPU bound, and even with a 9800X3D at the heart of our system, it struggles with a variety of GPUs to essentially keep up, which is why we see the 5090 coming in with 10% less performance than the 4090. Retesting garnered the same result, and speaking to other outlets, they’re seeing the same behaviour, along with those pretty terrible 1% lows. Luckily, you’d like to think that no one is buying an RTX 5090 and gaming at 1440p, and 4K does redeem itself with 24% and 38% more performance compared to the RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XTX respectively, though the 1% low figure again struggles to keep up the same momentum. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world action role-playing game set in the dystopian metropolis of Night City. Developed by CD Projekt Red, it offers a vast and immersive world filled with diverse characters, complex storylines, and a wide range of customization options. Players can create their own unique cyberpunk character and explore the city's underbelly, completing missions, engaging in cybernetic enhancements, and making choices that shape their destiny. In Cyberpunk, the 5090 takes the top spot again, but again it’s hard to ignore the 1% low inconsistencies, though a 22% lead is still welcomed over the 4090, along with 46% more frames than AMD though for the money, you could argue that it’s not enough to warrant slapping down $2000 on a GPU though there are other elements we need to look at later on in the review to really talk about that side of things. As we move up to 4K, things improve in the averages, with the 5090 giving us 40% more performance compared to its predecessor, and 63% more than the 7900 XTX, though I’m finding it hard not to keep mentioning the 1% lows, which just don’t see a similar uplift in performance. F1 24 F1 24 is the official video game of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship. Developed by Codemasters, it offers a realistic and immersive racing experience with all the official teams, drivers, and circuits. Players can compete in the full F1 season, participate in online multiplayer races, or create their own custom championships. F1 24 is a weird one, as it already displays some really high framerates, and the higher you go, the less impressive it looks and that’s exactly what we see here, with a pretty paltry 6% improvement over the card it’s due to replace, and again, without sounding like a broken record, we see a much lesser improvement in the 1% lows. We do see an improvement over AMD with 19% more frames, but considering where this card is positioned, that’s nowhere near enough of an uplift to warrant recommending. 4K does come in with better numbers, with the 5090 now pushing 24% more performance than the 4090 and 48% more than the 7900 XTX, and the 1% low figures are looking better too. Not great, but better nonetheless. Fortnite Fortnite is a massively popular online multiplayer game that combines elements of battle royale, building, and crafting. Developed by Epic Games, it features a constantly evolving world, a wide range of cosmetic items, and a variety of game modes. Players can team up with friends or compete against others in fast-paced matches where the last one standing wins. In Fortnite, there really isn’t much to say at 1440p, as we’re clearly severely limited as we only see 2% more performance to NVIDIA’s best offering from the last generation, though a 31% increase over AMD is welcomed, but that’s more a testament to AMD’s performance, than how much better the Blackwell GPU is, especially as those lows start to really show some poor performance. Moving up to 4K and things improve with 16% more frames over the 4090 and 68% more than AMD’s 7900 XTX, but again, that’s more how NVIDIA are better in this title as a whole, and how AMD are worse than the 5090 just simply being that much more powerful. Hogwarts Legacy Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world action role-playing game set in the magical world of Harry Potter. Developed by Avalanche Software, it allows players to experience life as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the 1800s. Players can attend classes, learn spells, explore the iconic castle and its grounds, and uncover hidden secrets. In Hogwarts, as we skip around West Hogsmeade, we find a 15% uplift in frames at 1440p when compared to the best of the last generation, while compared to the competition, that lead increases to 38%. As you may have guessed, the 1% low figures are pretty dire when thinking about where they should align, but at least this has been consistent throughout all of our testing. 4K packs in a bigger set of gains, with 26% more performance over Ada Lovelace and 57% more over RDNA3, but, and I’ll continue to say it, the performance that sees 26% gains, should see something of significance in the lows, whereas in this title, it’s practically identical. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Indiana Jones And The Great Circle is an upcoming action-adventure game based on the iconic film franchise. Developed by Bethesda Game Studios, it promises to deliver an epic and cinematic experience with a globe-trotting adventure, thrilling action sequences, and a captivating story. Players will step into the shoes of Indiana Jones and embark on a quest to uncover the secrets of a mysterious artefact. In Indiana Jones, the uplift is much smaller at 1440p when compared to the RTX 4090 of just 11%, while compared to AMD, we see 46% more performance over the 7900 XTX, which is definitely more like it. As we move up to 4K that improves further, with 20% more performance over the RTX 4090, and 78% more than AMD’s current best GPU. Starfield Starfield is a highly anticipated space exploration role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. It offers a vast and immersive galaxy to explore, with countless planets, star systems, and alien civilizations to discover. Players can create their own custom character and embark on a journey to uncover the secrets of the universe, completing missions, engaging in space combat, and making choices that shape their destiny. Starfield follows a bit of a trend at 1440p with just 7% more performance over the 4090, and a smaller change in the lows, though we do see a 32% uplift over AMD’s 7900 XTX, though NVIDIA does suffer quite badly in the lows compared to AMD in places, and the RTX 5090 continues along these lines. Then at 4K, we do see an increase of 11% over the RTX 4090 and 43% over the 7900 XTX, but I’d honestly expect better given the price of the card, and it leaves me wondering where the performance is. Raytracing? Upscaling? It has to be hiding somewhere. War Thunder War Thunder is a free-to-play vehicular combat multiplayer game that focuses on historical battles across World War II and the Cold War. Developed by Gaijin Entertainment, it features a wide range of aircraft, tanks, and naval vessels from various nations. Players can participate in large-scale battles with other players, completing objectives and striving for victory. Then in our last rasterisation test, we see no real change with the move from the 4090 up to the 5090 as we’re severely bottlenecked, though again, I can’t keep my eyes off of the 1% low figure that is starting to become a thorn in NVIDIA’s side. One silver lining is that we do have 34% more performance when compared to AMD, but considering the $2000 price tag, I’d be wanting a lot more. Luckily at 4K, we do get a fair bit more to the tune of 29% compared to the 4090 and our best result yet, a 90% lead over AMD’s 7900 XTX, which is definitely more like it and a good way to round things off. Overall Average FPS Results are added together, then averaged out for each graphics card at each resolution to give you an overall picture of their relative performance. Speaking of rounding things off, when looking at 1080p, there really isn’t much to talk about. The 4090 and 5090 are both equally as powerful as we’re being held back and not utilising 100% of our GPU power. The only real takeaway from this is that the 5090 does show the suffering it had with the 1% lows which when averaged out, does put the 4090 ahead, not that it’s anything to notice. As we move up to 1440p, we start to see some separation between the flagship from the 40 series and the new 5090 of just over 5%, which isn’t anything to really sing and dance about, especially due to the extra cost that this card demands, and the identical 1% low figure. Then at 4K, we really start to see the 5090 stretch its legs, as it offers up 25% more performance over the RTX 4090 and a healthy 61% over AMD’s best offering, with the 7900 XTX. It’s good to see, but I do feel that consumers are maybe expecting more from a raw performance point of view, especially when coupled with a 1% low figure that only sees a 13% uplift generation to generation, but I do feel this could be improved with game optimisations and driver updates. Ray Tracing Alan Wake 2 Alan Wake II pushes the boundaries of visual fidelity with its ambitious implementation of "full ray tracing," also known as path tracing. This means ray tracing handles all lighting, reflections, and shadows, creating a more realistic and immersive environment. The game features ray-traced direct lighting for accurate and dynamic shadows, ray-traced indirect lighting for realistic bounced light, ray-traced reflections on surfaces like water and glass, and ray-traced transparency for convincing interaction with transparent objects. With the next generation of RT cores, let’s move onto raytracing performance to see how things line up here starting with Alan Wake II at 1440p, and it’s here where we see a 20% uplift in performance over the last generation which doesn’t sound all that impressive, while 141% more performance over the 7900 XTX sounds amazing, until you realise that cards like the RTX 4070 SUPER and RTX 3090 beat it too, so again, it’s more of AMD doing badly, than NVIDIA doing exceptionally well. As we move up to 4K, the performance increases slightly, but still only to a level of 22% more compared to the RTX 4090, though again, it shows how far AMD are lacking when the 5090 comes in with 183% more performance in the averages. Ray Tracing Black Myth Wukong Black Myth Wukong is set to be a visual tour-de-force, thanks to its implementation of full ray tracing, also known as path tracing. This means ray tracing is used to render all lighting, reflections, and shadows within its fantastical world. Ray-traced reflections enhance the serene beauty of water features and the shine of polished surfaces, while ray-traced shadows add depth and realism to every scene. Ray-traced indirect lighting allows light to bounce naturally, creating a more believable environment. Even the game's particle effects, often a challenge for ray tracing, are rendered with impressive accuracy. In Black Myth Wukong at 1440p, we find a pretty strong improvement of 32% over the RTX 4090 and a mental 394% more frames than the 7900 XTX, but this is because the AMD-based card did so badly in this game. It’s very much the same story at 4K, though with slightly better disparity, as the RTX 5090 now gives us a 38% generational uplift over the RTX 4090, and a frankly absurd 525% increase over the 7900 XTX, though we are comparing 50 FPS to a measly 8 on the AMD card. Ray Tracing Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 was already a visually impressive game, but the implementation of "Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode" takes things to a whole new level. This mode utilises path tracing, a form of full ray tracing, to render all lighting, reflections, and shadows with exceptional accuracy. This means every neon sign, streetlamp, headlight, and screen in Night City contributes to the illumination of the environment, creating a truly breathtaking and immersive experience. Ray-traced reflections bring the city's rain-slicked streets and glass skyscrapers to life, while ray-traced shadows add depth and realism to every scene. In Cyberpunk at 1440p, as expected, the 5090 comes in packing a punch as it leads the way with 25% more performance over the RTX 4090, though still is somewhat off the mark in the low figures, but I’m hopeful that can be fixed through driver updates and optimisations. It does mean that we now have 200% better performance than the 7900 XTX, though as that now sits 1 FPS below the RTX 4070, again, it’s more about AMD here, than NVIDIA as such. 4K sees a bigger uplift of 32%, now putting the 5090 at 45 FPS, which also puts it a staggering 275% ahead of AMD, though to get to that magical 60 FPS threshold, upscaling is going to be your friend in this title, and we’ll look at that soon. Ray Tracing F1 24 F1 24 brings the thrill of Formula 1 racing to life with its implementation of ray tracing, adding a new layer of realism to the on-track action. Ray-traced reflections accurately capture the gleaming surfaces of the cars and the vibrant colours of the race tracks, while ray-traced shadows add depth and detail to every scene. The introduction of ray-traced ambient occlusion further enhances the visual fidelity, providing more realistic and nuanced shading. Even the crowds in the grandstands benefit from ray tracing, with more detailed and dynamic lighting. In F1 at 1440p, as the framerate is now lower with the settings cranked up to include raytracing, we start to see a bigger disparity with 28% more performance coming from the new Blackwell GPU over its Ada Lovelace predecessor, though more noticeably is the 94% uplift over the 7900 XTX, which raytracing to one side is geared more towards a Codemasters game, as they typically favour AMD quite well. Increasing the resolution to 4K does see larger gains, now with 35% more frames than the 4090, and 127% more compared to the 7900 XTX and the 1% lows are looking much healthier too. Ray Tracing Hogwarts Legacy Hogwarts Legacy, with its captivating recreation of the wizarding world, offers ray tracing features that enhance the visual experience, though perhaps not to the extent of a full path tracing implementation. Ray-traced reflections add a captivating sheen to the grand halls of Hogwarts, bringing the marble floors and shimmering surfaces to life. Ray-traced shadows deepen the atmosphere, casting realistic shadows from every student, creature, and spell. And with ray-traced ambient occlusion, the interplay of light and shadow is rendered with greater nuance and detail. While Hogwarts Legacy may not be a full ray tracing showcase, these effects still contribute to a more immersive and visually impressive experience. Then in our last raytracing title, Hogwarts, we see the 5090 coming in with 7% worse performance than the RTX 4090, and while we did retest, I guess it shows how fast the 5090 is, and that CPU-wise, even on a test like this, our 9800X3D isn’t able to keep up at this resolution. Luckily as we move up to 4K, which is where you’re realistically playing with this card, we now see, thanks to a 16% improvement over the 4090, a framerate of 65 FPS, so just over that threshold that gamers crave, though again, even with this increase, and a 140% lead over the 7900 XTX, the 1% low figures so suffer, though thankfully, that’s more of a widespread game issue as we can see across multiple GPUs in our chart. 3DMark Port Royal 3DMark Port Royal is a benchmarking tool specifically designed to measure the ray tracing performance of graphics cards. As the world's first dedicated real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers, it provides a realistic and practical example of what to expect from ray tracing in games. Also for some more context, we put the 5090 through its paces in Port Royal to see how it stacked up, and the RTX 5090 comes in packing 40% more performance over the RTX 4090 and 127% more performance when compared to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, but I think at this point that’s pretty much expected anyway. Ray Tracing Overall Average FPS As we look at the averages for ray tracing, starting with 1080p, we see where the 5090 really shines, as even at this more CPU-intensive resolution, the 5090 was able to come out quite far ahead of the rest of the cards, with the 4090 sitting 16% behind. Ray Tracing however is a lot more intensive on a GPU and it’s not really surprising that we see this kind of result. Regardless, I still wouldn’t recommend a 5090 for 1080p, even if the ray tracing performance is this good, as you’ll probably be upscaling anyway, and upscaling at 1080p can be pretty dire due to the quality issues. Moving on to 1440p, and we see the jump in performance between the 4090 and the new 5090 increasing a little, now at 20%. And whilst this is an improvement, and the frame rates are still more than playable, at only 20% more performance, it doesn’t really seem all that worth it for such a high price. Of course if you’re upgrading from anything else then you can expect a minimum increase of 56%, which is a lot more like it, so for 1440p i can see an argument for upgrading, but not if you have a 4090. Then finally we have 4K, and this is where your money is really going. Once again we do see a performance increase from the 4090 to the 5090, now with the 5090 performing 27% better. Again this is less than I’d hoped for, but with the percentage difference increasing with each resolution it’s actually justifying itself better as we see more demanding scenarios, which is a positive at least. If we look at some other cards and how they compare, then we start to see some even better jumps. With the likes of the 4080 Super being outperformed by 76%, the 3090 Ti by 118% and the 7900 XTX by a whopping 176%. If you’re looking to upgrade from any of those cards to a 5090 then it’s a lot easier to justify, but if you have a 4090 then I would still probably wait, especially if we do end up seeing multi-frame generation brought to the 40 series later on. Upscaling Cyberpunk Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the dark future of Night City — a dangerous megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour, and ceaseless body modification. You play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality. Cyberpunk 2077 supports up to DLSS 4 scaling and the latest Frame Gen technologies. In our first game Cyberpunk we booted it up running natively set to Ultra with no raytracing turned on. It’s here where we can see that the Transformer model does dramatically increase frame rates over the CNN model when comparing like for like, so CNN vs Transformer, X2 CNN Vs X2 Transformer and so on and for the most part, Transformer typically offers up better latency numbers, though in a title like this, it’s nothing that would be that noticeable anyway. What we can see is that we’re able to increase our frame rates by up to 390% while coming in with reduced latency, and we’ll talk a look at visuals soon too because performance is one thing, but if it means we’re sacrificing on immersion and fidelity, then that’s a trade-off that most gamers won’t like. When ray tracing was enabled and set to Ultra, the performance dynamics shifted. In this scenario, the CNN model slightly outperformed the Transformer model on average. This change highlights how different architectural strengths—localized processing in CNNs versus global context handling in Transformers—affect performance under ray tracing workloads. The shift also emphasizes the need for careful consideration of which model to deploy depending on the rendering scenario. While Transformers excel at non-ray-traced scenarios due to their ability to handle global scene data, CNNs appear better suited for the localized computations involved in ray tracing. This is likely due to CNNs’ efficiency in handling the pixel-level light interactions that dominate ray-traced rendering. When path tracing was enabled, the performance gap between CNN and Transformer models narrowed significantly. Both models provided better frame rates than native rendering and showed improvements in latency, but their performance was very similar. This suggests that path tracing introduces workloads that balance the strengths of both architectures, equalizing their overall efficiency. Path tracing’s computational demands might limit the ability of either model to fully leverage its unique advantages, resulting in comparable performance. Upscaling Hogwarts Legacy Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive, open-world action RPG set in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. Journey to Hogwarts in the 1800s as you attend classes, learn spells, brew potions, tame magical beasts, and uncover the hidden secrets of the wizarding world. Hogwarts Legacy supports a wide range of DLSS upscaling technologies. In Hogwarts, we don’t have the ability to change the model, so instead, it just uses Transformer and while the data kind of speaks for itself, it’s clear to see that there’s a very clear correlation with the frame rate going up quite dramatically, and the latency being held in check at the same time. This goes to show that Reflex and MFG are doing a great job of working together to forgo any issues that you’d historically be faced with by artificially increasing a frame rate through upscaling. What our chart does show is that even with raytracing turned on, which along with the main setting was pushed to Ultra, we are now able to get to framerates of 280 FPS with a latency of 56.12, which with the fact that this isn’t a competitive shooter, is pretty damn impressive, though of course you can get a lower latency by ditching raytracing, though why would you do that if you’re rocking an RTX 5090 because performance is one thing, but visuals is the other. Upscaling Visual Comparison Speaking of visuals, we decided to compare how upscaling looks at a variety of different settings. We did find however that the difference between DLSS and Frame generation was negligible to non-existent, so for the sake of time we’ll only be looking at running the games natively versus MFG set to X4. Starting off with Cyberpunk set to Ultra (above) we can see that not a whole lot has changed, but there are just a few little details that we can spot, for example if we look at the support beam on the food stand, we can see that using upscaling has made it a little bit less smooth, making the jagged edge more noticeable, but this isn’t something you’d really notice while moving around anyway and is more because we’re zooming in and really looking for it. Enabling Ray Tracing makes things look a lot more realistic as you would expect. In particular, the reflection in the puddle on the floor, where upscaling actually seems to be reflecting a little more. This could quite possibly be the upscaler enhancing the details that were already there but weren't as noticeable before. That support bar from before is no longer an issue now which is a little odd, but welcome nonetheless. When we turn on path tracing we see the most realistic visuals yet, and we also see that the support beam is again, not an issue, but within the reflections of the puddle we see another interesting change. For some reason we see upscaling providing a bit of a clearer reflection, as in it’s slightly less cloudy and there is again some more detail present here. This isn’t something I can really explain, but instead is only something I can speculate on, and I would assume that the upscaler is taking the smaller details and simply trying to enhance them. It’s hard to say which one is more realistic but what I can say is that I think I actually prefer the look of the upscaling here. Moving over to Hogwarts Legacy for one more game to look at, and here we see that upscaling doesn’t really affect much in terms of the visuals. The textures don’t show any noticeable differences and there isn’t any more grain than we see without upscaling. Interestingly though we do see a bit more of a foggy look to the upscaling version, making it look just a bit more washed out. This is again probably the upscaler taking smaller details and enhancing them a bit, making this pretty bright scene look a little bit less colorful. Finally, we enabled raytracing and this really changes how the game looks, with the great big window now giving a massive reflection on the floor of the great hall, but this doesn’t look the best as the reflection seems to wobble a bit. Discussing this in the office we decided that it must be related to the bump mapping on the ground as well as the camera's consistent gentle movement causing some confusion for the reflections and this doesn’t change with upscaling enabled either. In fact it only gets more intense, so again, the small details being enhanced, which is good when it comes to textures and geometry, but not so good when it’s an imperfection being enhanced to be more visible. Power & Temperatures So gaming performance to one side, cooling, power and temperatures play a big part in anyone buying a GPU, so to test, we fired up F1 24 for an hour-long loop to see how capable or not the Founders card is. It’s here where the GPU maintained a remarkably steady 72°C throughout the test, with only occasional spikes to 73°C. This result is actually quite surprising, as I was expecting temperatures closer to the mid-to-high 80s so good job on NVIDIA with their cooling solution for this card. The Memory Junction Temperature also mirrors the GPU temperature, staying within the same range and these results underscore the effectiveness of the new, slimmer cooler design, which is clearly doing its job. What’s equally impressive is that the fans, running at a modest 1500 RPM during the test, remain quiet—barely noticeable over the noise of the system’s other fans. This cooler not only keeps the RTX 5090 perfectly cool but does so with minimal noise and also raises curiosity about how the RTX 5080, which shares this cooler design, will perform. The GPU clock speeds ranged from a high of 2580 MHz to a low of 2510 MHz, with an average of 2550 MHz throughout the test. The memory clock remained steady at 3500MHz, though our overlay shows the single data Effective rate which equals roughly 28 Gbps Effective and was pretty consistent, holding at around 47% utilisation during the test while the GPU sat between 97 to 98% throughout the bulk of the test with rare drops to 95% in places. Now a big one is power efficiency, and this card didn’t hold back using every watt at its disposal peaking to 550W and averaging around 540W, so make sure you have a suitable power supply to give the card the power it needs. Cost Per Frame Before I mention the cost per frame data, it’s worth noting that the likes of the RTX 4090 that is being “replaced” is and has been a nightmare to get hold of for quite some time along with shortages on other high-end cards, and because of that it’s hard to compare the pricing of the 5090 to these wildly inflated prices, because in all honesty, if you’re looking to spend anything over MSRP, short of it being slightly higher being a custom version of the card, then you shouldn’t, so for the purposes of transparency, we have two charts, one using MSRP pricing and another with the typical selling price. With this in mind, and purely looking at 4K data, because of CPU bottleneck issues at lower resolutions, the RTX 5090 based upon MSRP launch pricing comes in with a cost per frame of $9.17, which is essentially on par with the RTX 4090 when that launched at $1599, meaning that if you were looking at the 4090 being anything above that price, then it’s just not worth it. The 5090 being the new kid on the block has got the obvious early adopter tax, and typically, at least with other product segments, you’d see pricing fall as time goes on, but with GPUs in the sad sorry state of affairs that is the current market, they end up going up in price, and this will all change once we likely see the 5090 released for sale. There are obviously much better value cards to buy if value for money is your end goal, but the 5090 was never made to be aimed at that end of the market. When we look at a typical selling price, things actually look better for the 5090. Not because its cost per frame changes, but because of other cards that increase quite rapidly like the RTX 4090 now coming in at $16.04 per frame compared to $9.17 of the new 5090. With such inflated prices across the board, this actually puts the 5090 slightly better value than the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, along with all NVIDIA GPUs that are higher up in the 40 series stack. Compared to AMD, they still hold the torch when it comes to value for money on what is arguably the “high-end” but can’t compete in terms of raw performance which is where the 5090 shines, though if you’ll be able to get one for the $1999 price tag will be something we’ll find out when they go on sale. How Much Does it Cost? The Nvidia RTX 5090 is launching this month, with the flagship RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 available from January 30th, priced at $1,999 (£1,939) and $999 (£979) respectively. The RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 will follow in February with prices set at $749 (£729) and $549 (£539). UK prices are estimated at this time, please wait for official figures. Nvidia Founders Editions will be available directly from Nvidia and select retailers, while partner cards from manufacturers like ASUS and MSI will also hit the market, and we'll have reviews of those for you as soon as possible. You can check for up to date stock and prices at Scan.co.uk here. Overview So let’s break this down a little because with a card like this, there are multiple angles to look at. The first is that this is the most powerful GPU in the world. There’s no doubt about that, but it comes with a caveat, though it’s a pretty obvious one. If you’re slapping down $2000 on a 5090, you’ve probably got a 4K high refresh-rate monitor and you also would expect the very best performance. Alternatively, and this is something we’ve not touched on, you’re a professional looking for Titan-like performance in GeForce clothing. Regardless, money is likely not an obstacle and instead, you want the best of the best. Using the 5090 at anything other than 4K, or perhaps 5K2K almost seems criminal. So who knows, maybe 8K gaming will finally take off at some point soon. Drilling down further, we can break it up into rasterisation, ray tracing and upscaling, and they all have their merits, but also their downsides. Rasterisation When it comes to rasterisation, we have strong performance, though as I said many times, the 1% lows do seem like they need some work, but through optimisations and driver updates, I feel that this can be fixed, and in quite a timely manner. It’s also not a huge leap as I’m sure a lot of consumers will expect for rasterisation, but I can also see why. From NVIDIA’s point of view, they are hedging their bets on upscaling through AI and leveraging that, which I’ll move on to shortly. There is still an uplift without upscaling, and maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like we’re almost at some kind of metaphorical limit for what we can expect from generation to generation. Perhaps that’s why other avenues are being explored to give better performance, better visuals and better latency, and all of those factors combined does equal a pretty damn impressive experience. Ray Tracing Ray tracing has also seen an uplift and is almost ushered into the same boat as rasterisation now. We’ve had raytracing for quite a few years now, and it’s made huge strides in terms of what's possible, and how we get that next level of immersion. The 5090 can run games at respectable framerates without upscaling when raytracing is turned on, but game developers are going to want to keep pushing this to its limits by not just having certain elements of raytracing, but going all in with full ray tracing, including global illumination, reflections, shadows, and ambient occlusion—all calculated in real-time. This level of fidelity brings an unparalleled sense of realism to games, making environments feel more dynamic and lifelike and that is still considered next level. The NVIDIA 5090, with its improved architecture and raw power, is finally starting to make this vision feasible without significant compromises. However, as developers push towards fully ray-traced worlds, the challenge will shift towards optimizing performance and ensuring these visual enhancements don't come at the cost of gameplay fluidity or accessibility for players with mid-range hardware; something the 5090 doesn’t have to worry about. For gamers, the combination of hardware like the 5090 and advances in software technologies like DLSS means raytracing is no longer just a luxury; it's becoming the standard for next-gen gaming experiences, though I guess a big question comes down to how far developers can push raytracing before the hardware has to catch up once again. Upscaling and Frame Gen Which leads me onto upscaling, and more importantly, Multi-Frame Generation (MFG), a groundbreaking feature that we now have with the Blackwell architecture. MFG takes upscaling to an entirely new level by not only predicting intermediate frames for smoother motion but also leveraging AI to generate entire frames, reducing and enhancing the rendering workload on the GPU. It works in conjunction with traditional upscaling methods like DLSS to deliver those stunning visuals while also maintaining high framerates, even in demanding scenarios. The big difference with MFG, means that the 5090 is capable of rendering at lower native resolutions while making the output look as if it were produced at 4K or even 8K, and this improves on what we’ve seen before by offering an incredible balance of performance and image quality. This personally, is a game-changer for ray tracing-heavy games, as it allows developers to implement advanced features like full raytraced environments without worrying about crippling performance and based on seeing what it can do, the real marvel of MFG lies in its ability to handle unpredictable scenes with rapid changes. Unlike traditional upscaling, which sometimes struggles with motion artefacts, MFG adapts to each frame intelligently, therefore preserving detail and minimizing visual distortions. While it’s ideal for gaming, it also has a place in creative applications like 3D rendering and VR too. Reflex While MFG on its own should and does introduce drawbacks in terms of latency, Reflex comes to the rescue here and shows that working in tandem, we’re now able to reach higher levels of visual fidelity, with higher frame rates, and lower latency and this all gives us a glimpse into the future of real-time graphics. Should Buy One? Is the RTX 5090 for everyone? No, of course not. It’s positioned as a premium-tier product and is designed for enthusiasts and professionals who need the highest levels of performance and cutting-edge technology. However, with the release of the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 coming soon, NVIDIA is making sure that the Blackwell architecture is accessible across a range of price points and performance tiers. Every product line benefits from a flagship model, and the RTX 5090 can be described as a showcase of NVIDIA’s technological capabilities. I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the stack has to offer, as well as seeing more and more games take advantage of what the 50 series as a whole has to offer. The RTX 5090 is more than just a product; it’s a demonstration of what’s possible at the forefront of GPU technology. While it’s not practical for every user, there’s nothing that can compete with it, and with the improvements I spoke about, I think it’s only going to get better.