NVIDIA RTX 5090 Review: A Deep Dive into Performance, Thermals, and Efficiency

The NVIDIA RTX 5090 is here, and we've put it through its paces. This review dives deep into the gaming performance, thermal characteristics, acoustics, ray tracing capabilities, power consumption, and that innovative new Founders Edition design. Let's see if it lives up to the hype.

Under the Hood: Key Specifications

Let's get into the nitty-gritty. The RTX 5090 is built on the new Blackwell architecture, utilizing the GB202 chip on a TSMC 4nm process. Here's a quick breakdown:

Design and Cooling

The 5090 sports an illuminated "X" on both sides of the card—a nice touch, though, with current software, there’s no control over the lighting. Thermally, the card boasts a 575W total board power (TBP) with a slightly angled power plug to help with cable management. The card uses a 3D vapor chamber with liquid metal for die cooling, featuring a flow-through design with a three-part PCB.

A tighter fin stack (1.6mm gaps) and the concave design of the fin array is clearly improving heat dissipation, which is critical given the increased power draw. Despite feeling dense, the 5090 is surprisingly lighter than the 4090 at 1,836g compared to 2,178g. It also has a darker, gunmetal color.

Gaming Performance: A Significant Uplift

For 4K rasterization, the RTX 5090 shows a 20-50% performance increase over the RTX 4090, depending on the game. 4K ray tracing sees a 27-35% uplift, varying by title. Notably, these numbers are sometimes without FSR. And, even at 1080p, with a 9800X3D CPU, the 5090 still shows what this beast can do. The 9800X3D, let's be clear, is a phenomenal CPU and this combo is a performance powerhouse even at lower resolutions.

However, we do see that at lower resolutions the 5090's performance gain begins to diminish. It is at 4K that this card shines.

Thermal Performance: Surprisingly Good

The RTX 5090's GPU thermals are better than expected, even with all the pre-release discussions. We were generally impressed. Under load, we saw steady-state temps of around 72°C in a controlled environment (21-22°C ambient). Considering that this a two-slot design, this is pretty amazing.

The memory temps, however, ran warm at 89-90°C. While technically within TJ Max, it's something to watch for, especially in smaller cases or higher ambient temperatures. We'll have a follow-up on that topic soon!

Acoustics: Quiet Under Pressure

Despite the immense power, the card is surprisingly quiet. At default fan speeds under load, it measured about 32.5 dBA in our acoustic chamber. We saw some spikes during testing, but overall, the noise was uniform and blended into the background well, subjectively speaking.

The Founders Edition Design: A Marvel of Engineering

The RTX 5090 Founders Edition is truly something special. It moves to a two-slot design and uses a dual flow-through configuration.

• The PCB is centrally located, with the PCIe slots offset.
• A separate PCB is used for the I/O at the back.
• Liquid metal is used with a triple-walled gasket to ensure secure and effective cooling.

The Fe card does a lot of small things to improve performance, like exhausting the air out of the top of the card. The angles on the card push air away from the fan inlet, improving overall airflow efficiency.

Pricing and Availability

The RTX 5090 is set to launch on January 30th at $2000. The RTX 5080 will also launch on that day for $1000. The 5070 Ti and 5070 will come later (February) at $750 and $550.

Comparative Analysis: AMD and Intel

Currently, AMD's RX 7900 XTX is the closest competitor at around $870-$900. AMD is aiming to make the next generation of high-end GPUs, the 9070 and 9070 XT by March or so. Intel is currently fighting in the low and mid-range market.

Benchmarks: The Numbers Speak

Our test rig, powered by a 9800X3D CPU overclocked to a locked 5.3GHz and 32GB of 6000MHz CL28 RAM, was put to the test.

Final Fantasy XIV (4K)

The 5090 averaged 182 FPS, a 31% increase over the 4090. The memory increase didn't impact this game much, but we expect this to be more of an impact in professional applications. The 7900 XTX held steady at 104 FPS.

Black Myth: Wukong (4K)

The RTX 5090 averaged 86 FPS, a 28% gain over the 4090. What’s truly wild is that the 5090's slowest frames are faster than the 4090’s average frame rate.

Starfield (4K)

The 5090 averaged 108 FPS, a 17% increase over the 4090, and 40% over the 7900 XTX.

Dragon's Dogma 2 (4K)

The 5090 averaged 133 FPS, a 35% increase over the 4090. The lows were consistent and showed excellent frame pacing.

Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, Phantom Liberty)

The 5090 averaged 95 FPS, an impressive 50% gain over the 4090. The low FPS values were also excellent.

Dying Light 2 (4K)

The 5090 delivered a 38% performance increase in average frame rate as compared to the 4090.

Resident Evil 4 (4K)

The 5090 hit 207 FPS, a 37% increase over the 4090. Memory limitations become apparent here when we move to 1440p and 1080p.

Ray Tracing Benchmarks:

• Black Myth Wukong (4k, RT) - 36% lead over 4090.
• Dragon's Dogma 2 (4k, RT) - 33% lead over 4090.
• Dying Light 2 (4k, RT) - 37% lead over 4090.
• Resident Evil 4 (4k, RT) - 31% lead over 4090.
• Cyberpunk 2077 (4k, RT Ultra)- 35% lead over 4090.

Note: Performance at 1440p and 1080p shows smaller gains, often due to CPU bottlenecks. Also, these numbers are all averages. We have tested low frame times which can be as high as prior flagships' average frame rates!

Efficiency: Room for Improvement

The RTX 5090 is the most power-hungry card we've ever tested and has relatively high idle power consumption (46 watts), with the 4090 at 28 to 29 Watts. Efficiency is roughly the same as the 4090 in many tests. While the 5090 is technically more efficient in certain tests, these advantages are tied to artificially generated frames through MFG and DLSS.

Nvidia’s claims of efficiency improvements are largely based on artificially generating more frames than prior generations.

Power Consumption: Are You Ready for This

Power draw is substantial, especially during stress tests. While the card itself reports a 575W TDP, our hardware measurements show it spiking significantly higher than that under certain workloads. Expect total system power to exceed 800W when combined with a high-end CPU, like the 9800x3d and consider a 1200W PSU.

Insertion force with the 12VHPWR connector is also significantly improved, which should help prevent melting connector issues from arising.

NVIDIA's Marketing: A Grain of Salt

NVIDIA's marketing materials overstate the performance gains by comparing dlss 4 with frame generation to prior generations without frame generation. They also have the new CEO’s statement about the 5070 being the same as the 4090 which we find highly questionable.

Frame Gen and Latency: The Multi-Frame Gen Debate

The 50 series introduces multi-frame generation, which is a hardware-level feature. While it significantly boosts frame rates, this does come with the cost of increased latency. Input is based on the rendered frame, and while output can show very high frame rates due to interpolation, the actual feel can remain tied to the base frame rate. The takeaway? Single-player titles may not be affected by input lag as much, but those who prefer competitive games will notice some latency.

DLSS 4: Beyond Multi-Frame Gen

DLSS 4 isn't just about multi-frame gen, however. It also includes improvements to the upscaler itself via the new Transformer model (the same thing that ChatGPT uses). This new model improves image sharpening, denoising, and reduces smudging and distant text fuzziness. While it’s not perfect, it's a clear improvement, and the transformative model will also be available to 40, 30, and 20 series cards.

The Verdict

The RTX 5090 is a powerhouse, particularly at 4K, but if you're using anything less, you are probably not getting the most value out of it. The card showed great performance and generally good thermal performance, and that impressive two-slot Founders Edition. It's also a power hog that needs to work on its idle consumption. The most glaring problem is Nvidia's marketing and questionable claims regarding the true generational jump.