Nvidia RTX 5090: Specifications, price & performance speculation

Anticipation for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is high as consumers expect another record-breaking GPU. We cover everything we know about this upcoming card, including what the speculated price, specifications and performance could be.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is the fastest consumer graphics card on the market, and as such its successor has big shoes to fill. The RTX 5090 is the hotly anticipated follow-up to the RTX 4090, and consumers are expecting big things from this upcoming card.

Nvidia has not yet released many solid details on this GPU, so much of the information we have on it has been obtained via industry rumors and leaks. As always, this means that until such time as Nvidia issues official statements, this information needs to be taken with a generous pinch of salt.

RTX 5090 leaked specifications

It is expected that the RTX 4090 will use the GB202 chip. This chip is the flagship of the new Blackwell architecture line, which was officially announced by Nvidia at GTC 2024.

Analysts predict that the GB202 gaming chip will have significant performance gains compared to the current Ada Lovelace AD102 chips. The L1 cache in particular is expected to see large gains in performance.

Reliable leaker Kopite7Kimi indicated that the GB202 will use the same process node as the AI-focussed GB101 chip. In addition, Kopite7Kimi suggested that the chip would have 12 GPCs, with 8 TPCs each, for a total of 96TPCs.

Another reliable hardware leaker called Panzerlied shared some possible specifications for the RTX 5090, which if accurate could show some very impressive improvements.

Spec	RTX 4090	RTX 5090
Streaming Multiprocessors	128	192
CUDA Cores	16,384	24,576
Ray Tracing Cores	128	192
Tensor Cores	512	768
Boost Clock	2.52 GHz	2.9 GHz
L2 Cache	72MB	128MB
Memory Bandwidth	1,008 GB/s	1,532 GB/s

When it comes to the memory bus, there is some debate. Early information indicated that Nvidia were planning to re-use the existing 384-bit memory bus from the Ada chips. However, more up-to-date information suggests that Nvidia will be using a 512-bit memory bus, but only on flagship chips such as the GB202 that is expected to be used in the RTX 5090.

RTX 5090 performance speculation

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According to the Panzerlied leak, the RTX 5090 will end up being around 70% faster than the RTX 4090. Though, it’s unclear how, or where this figure might be replicated. It’s likely that the leaker is talking about pure, rasterized performance, with no DLSS bells and whistles to boost the performance up.

This ends up being around 1.7x faster than the current fastest gaming GPU, meaning that the Blackwell generation might end up as one of the larger generational leaps in GPUs that we have seen for quite some time.

RTX 5090 features speculation

Current data suggests that the RTX 5090 will feature support for Display Port 2.1 as well as HDMI 2.1, and update on the Ada Lovelace series, which did not offer support for DisplayPort 2.1.

The power connector has turned out to be something of a sticking point. There have been numerous reports of reliability issues with the 12VHPWR connector used in the RTX 4090 and 40 Super cards, with some consumers reporting melted connectors.

Another persistent and reliable leaker called Moore’s Law is Dead reported that Nvidia is planning to switch to a new type of connector for its newest generation of cards. The leak goes on to say that Team Green is working on an entirely new type of 16-pin connector. So far, no other leaks have substantiated this rumor, however.

RTX 5090 release window speculation

According to Taiwanese news publication United Daily News, the RTX 5090 is planned for release in Q4 of 2024. This date would mark two years since the reveal of the RTX 40 series. According to this leak, this decision is to: “help board card manufacturers shipments this year and drive up the average unit price of graphics card products.”

RTX 5090 price speculation

Though very little information is currently available on what can be expected regarding the price structure for the RTX 50 series, some analysts are predicting that the RTX 5090 will retail with an MSRP of $1699 at launch.
The RTX 4090 was basically unchallenged in its category. With the RTX 5090 set up to have similar dominance at the extremely high end of the market, this could give Nvidia carte blanche to charge whatever they choose.

Should you wait for the RTX 5090?

Customers looking to buy a top-end GPU might be advised to wait until the end of 2024. If the RTX 5090 launches during the expected window, those with deep pockets will have a shiny new toy to play with. Those looking for a bargain could also benefit by snatching up discounted RTX 4090 or RTX 4080 Super cards when retailers look to offload old stock.