Nvidia RTX 5090 vs. RTX 4090: an early spec comparison
Table of ContentsTable of ContentsPricing and availabilitySpecsPerformanceThe RTX 5090 will be the best, but by how much?Nvidias next-generation kingpin, the RTX 5090, is now official, and its as mad as the predictions predicted at least, according to Nvidia. We havent had a chance to test this card ourselves yet, but its looking set to be an absolute monster, even when compared to its last-generation counterpart. The RTX 4090 is no slouch, though. Until now, it was the fastest graphics card the world had ever seen, and it will remain a fantastic gaming GPU for many years to come.So, how do these two behemoth graphics cards compare? Lets take a look.Recommended VideosThe Nvidia RTX 5090 was announced at CES 2025, with availability starting on January 30. Its recommended retail price is an eye-watering $2,000, however more like the GPU-shortage pricing for the RTX 4090 than that cards debut price. When that card debuted in October 2022, its launch price was a comparatively affordable $1,600.Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming Today you can find Nvidia Founders Edition 4090s for that same price, with third-party options ranging from $1,500 up to $2,000 for those with the most advanced cooling solutions. Nvidia has defended the price, of course, but we wont know for sure how much extra value it offers until were able to see it more in action.RelatedIf we went by the specifications alone, the RTX 5090 should hold a commanding lead over its predecessor in just about any scenario, but all those additional cores and faster memory cells come at the cost of power.Nvidia RTX 5090Nvidia RTX 4090CUDA Cores21,76016,384RT CoresUnknown quantity, 4th generation128, 3rd generationTensor CoresUnknown quantity, 5th generation512, 4th generationMaximum clock2.41GHz2.5GHzMemory size32GB GDDR724GB GDDR6XMemory bus512-bit384-bitMemory speed28Gbps21GbpsMemory bandwidth1,792GBps1,008GBpsTBP575W450WThe RTX 5090 is a big generational uplift in a number of ways. Its got 33% more CUDA cores, which should lead to a strong improvement in general rasterization performance over the 4090, as well as further mitigate the FPS drop caused by demanding visual effects, like ray tracing.Id love to tell you that the RTX 5090 has a big increase in the number of RT cores, but unfortunately Nvidias marketing uses a new metric for measuring those. While they are based on a new, fourth-generation design, weve been given a measurement of 318 TFLOPS. That doesnt give us much to go on for now, but we can assume a solid improvement in overall RT performance considering the general increases weve seen from previous Nvidia generations.The same goes for Nvidias Tensor cores. Theyre a new fifth-generation design, with an arbitrary 3,352 AI TOPS performance rating, which doesnt give us the ability to compare it to the previous generation. They do allow for multi-frame generation capabilities, though, which well get to a little later.On the memory front, we can be much more clear about the big boost Nvidia has given its latest GPU. The RTX 5090 sports a new generation of GDDR7 video memory, and 50% more of it, with 32GB. Its much faster, at 28Gbps, delivering a near 80% improvement in overall memory bandwidth. Thats massive overkill for gaming, perhaps betraying this cards design as more of a Titan-esque card, than a flagship gaming GPU even if it is likely to be the fastest card of its generation.All of that comes at the cost of power, though, as this flagship Nvidia card once again requires far more than its predecessor. Nvidia claims youll need 575W of power for the GPU alone. Thats more power than some modest gaming PCs need in their entirety.Nvidia made somegrandiose claims about the performance of all its RTX 50-series cards, and while they may be some technical truth to them, its not as clear cut as Team Green would have you believe. Until we test these cards ourselves, though, we cant say for sure how they will perform, so well take a look at Nvidias claims and benchmark numbers, and temper our expectations with a dose of skepticism.GeForce RTX 5090 / RTX 4090 Comparison | Cyberpunk 2077As you can see, there are some scenarios where the RTX 5090 can perform at up to twice the speed of the RTX 4090, delivering incredible frame rates in even the most demanding of games with full ray tracing. Impressive stuff!Those numbers are echoed in similarly AAA games, too, according to Nvidias charts. There are no FPS numbers, though, and a big caveat at the bottom. There, Nvidia lets us know that in the games that use DLSS in its testing, it used DLSS 3.5 for the RTX 4090 and DLSS 4 frame generation x 4 with the RTX 5090. Multi-frame generation uses AI to generate multiple frames per rendered frame, leading to much greater increases in frames per second, without the traditional performance required to do it from the main GPU.That is likely to lead to some latency issues, even with the RTX 5090s new Nvidia Reflex technology.NvidiaWhile that might leave us guessing about the true performance of this new GPU and how it compares to the RTX 4090, there are a few additional hints on this chart about what we might really be looking at.In games that dont support DLSS 4, like Plague Tale: Requiem, the performance difference between the two cards is much less impressive more like 50% faster, rather than 100% or more. And in Far Cry 6, with no DLSS used at all, we get what may well the the true performance advantage of the RTX 5090: something much closer to a traditional 30% generational improvement.It would make sense that the RTX 5090 is at its best in RT and DLSS-supporting games, where it can leverage its RT and Tensor cores to aid the GPU. But most games dont have ray tracing, and almost no games support DLSS 4 yet, so it may be sometime before the RTX 5090s true capabilities can be realized. Even then, not everyone likes the look or feel of frame generation, and it can be a downright hindrance in competitive games.The RTX 5090 isnt out yet, so if you want the best graphics card money can buy right now, the RTX 4090 is still it. However, once the 5090 debuts at the end of January, the 5090 is almost certainly going to be the new king of the hill. By how much though? Thats still a question to be answered.Nvidia pushed the limits of credulity with some of its marketing terms and style at CES 2025. It was very clear it didnt expect any real competition at this level of graphics card, even from AMD. But the RTX 5090 is not going to be twice as fast as the RTX 4090 outside of very specific scenarios, and will likely be around 30% to 50% faster depending on the game. However, as DLSS performance continues to improve and more games adopt multi-frame generation, its performance advantage over the RTX 4090 (and any other GPU out there) will continue to grow.For now, wed recommend waiting to see what this new card can do once its available for third-party testing. Its going to be impressive, but that power draw looms large over it and the price puts it outside the realm of realistic purchases for the vast majority of gamers.Editors Recommendations
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