Introduction

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Blackwell heralds a new chapter in 3D graphics, and we have with us the sleek new RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card. Gaming graphics had several major milestones over the past 20 years, beginning with raster 3D, pixel- and vertex shaders, and real time ray tracing; now NVIDIA plans to introduce the next major milestone—neural rendering. By now you’re likely aware of generative AI, and its ability to conjure up richly detailed images and video. NVIDIA and its allied researchers in 3D graphics have discovered a way give generative AI a more active role in real time graphics, with the introduction of neural shaders. The new Blackwell graphics architecture, besides bringing in generational improvements to performance and efficiency, also introduces DLSS 4, and with it, an exclusive new technology called Multi Frame Generation. The company claims to have figured out a way to get AI to not just create every other frame, but up to four frames following a conventionally rendered frame. This is a bold claim, but if NVIDIA pulls it off, the RTX 50-series will really turn the page on what’s possible with current technology, and maybe even tempt game developers to give us our next Crysis.

The new GeForce Blackwell graphics architecture sees advancements to all six key components of the GPU. The CUDA cores, or the GPU’s main unified shader engines, not just introduce generational IPC increases, but are also redesigned to accelerate neural shaders. The 4th generation RT core, besides continuing to lower the performance cost of ray tracing compared to the previous generation, comes with optimization for mega geometry—ray traced objects with much more complex geometry (more surfaces for rays to interact with). The 5th generation Tensor cores lay the groundwork for not just for neural rendering, but also introduce support for newer data formats, including FP4. NVIDIA has given all components involved in AI acceleration a dedicated management engine called AMP. Next up, Blackwell also updates the media acceleration engines; and gives its display I/O a much-needed update, with support for DisplayPort 2.1 and UHBR20. Lastly, Blackwell is the first GPU to use PCI-Express Gen 5 and GDDR7 memory standards. There are significant increases in memory bandwidth across the board.

What’s interesting, though, is that while GeForce Blackwell innovates in almost every direction, the entire line of GPUs is built on the same exact foundry node as the RTX 40-series Ada generation, a specialized variant of the 5 nm EUV node at TSMC that the foundry co-engineered with NVIDIA, called TSMC 4N. Any generational gains in performance-per-watt are purely from the architecture, and new power management technologies introduced with Blackwell, not from the node.

The GeForce RTX 5090 is the company’s flagship graphics card in this generation, and is based on the gargantuan 5 nm GB202 monolithic silicon. The SKU enables 170 out of 192 streaming multiprocessors (SM) present on the chip, achieving 21,760 CUDA cores, 170 RT cores, 680 Tensor cores, 680 TMUs, and 192 ROPs. The memory sub-system sees a major generational upgrade. The card comes with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory running at 28 Gbps. NVIDIA has widened the memory bus to 512-bit, giving the RTX 5090 an enormous 1.792 TB/s of memory bandwidth—the kind you expect from HBM setups on AI GPUs. These massive increases in memory size and bandwidth are crucial for the GPU to pull off high-geometry ray tracing, and neural rendering.

NVIDIA didn’t limit its engineering to just the GB202 silicon, and its various software technologies such as DLSS 4 and Reflex 2; but also the hard product itself. The Founders Edition card is a remarkable piece of engineering. It just as long and tall as the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, but just two-thirds its thickness (2-slot versus 3-slot). This is made possible by the new Double Flow Through cooling solution that compacts and pushes the PCB out of the way to create two nearly unrestricted channels of airflow for the card’s two fans.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition comes with close to reference clock speeds of 2407 MHz GPU boost, and 28 Gbps (GDDR7-effective) memory. With these settings, the total graphics power (TGP), the de facto power limit of the card, shoots all the way up to 575 W, nearing the design limits of the 600 W-capable 12V-2×6 power connector. NVIDIA is pricing the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition at the SKU’s baseline price of USD $1,999. This is a steep increase in price over the RTX 4090, which started at $1,599.