We finally got the full lowdown on the Nvidia RTX 5090, thanks to CES 2025 finally revealing everything we need to know about the highly anticipated follow-up to the best graphics card you can buy, the Nvidia RTX 4090.
Nvidia's newest flagship card is clearly even more of a beast than the RTX 4090, the latter already an incredibly powerful card in its own right. With substantially more processing units and as much as 40% more power required to run it, it's the gamer's dream GPU.
So what do we know about Team Green's upcoming BFGPU 3.0? I'm pulling all the latest news right here in one place to help you stay on top of all the new information about the Nvidia RTX 5090.
Nvidia RTX 5090: Cut to the chase
- What is it? Nvidia's flagship for its next generation of RTX graphics cards
- How much does it cost? $1,999 (£1,999 / AU$4,039)
- When can I get it? January 30, 2025
Nvidia RTX 5090: Latest news
- Nvidia unveils new GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 graphics cards at CES 2025
- Nvidia CES 2025 Keynote live blog: all the latest on the RTX 5000 reveal and more
- Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU price hike could be much less painful than a previous rumor suggested
- Nvidia RTX 5080 and 5090 may not turn up this year after all – next-gen GPUs might be launched at CES 2025
- Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU could have less VRAM than previously rumored – but that might be good news for gamers
Read more news...
- If you’re not excited about Nvidia’s RTX 5090 yet, you will be after seeing Micron’s new VRAM that’s rumored for the GPU
- Nvidia RTX 5090 rumors continue to suggest this graphics card will not just be powerful, but also miraculously slim
- Nvidia RTX 5090 could pack 32GB of VRAM and be a slimmer graphics card than the RTX 4090
- Nvidia could use massive 600W-capable cooler for RTX 5090 – but don't panic about flagship GPU being a power hog
- Nvidia might launch RTX 5080 GPU before RTX 5090, new rumor suggests – but we wouldn’t bank on it
- RTX 5080 may not make 2024, but RTX 5090 and Blackwell laptop GPUs look promising
- Nvidia RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs could be here in less than half a year – but scalpers might ruin this early launch
- Nvidia could be up to something odd with next-gen Blackwell GPUs – and AMD might take advantage
- Nvidia's RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs might arrive later in 2024 — and it's honestly way too soon
- Nvidia RTX 5090 launch might hinge on AMD's RDNA 4 success
- 16-pin connectors could be mandatory for all Nvidia RTX 5000 graphics cards – here’s why that’d be bad news for some GPUs
- Nvidia RTX 5090 could have up to 77% more memory than 4090, a win for gamers
- Nvidia's RTX 5000 GPUs are a confusing proposition for gamers like me
Nvidia RTX 5090: Release date
We finally have an official release date for the Nvidia RTX 5090, which was revealed during the tech giant's presentation at CES 2025. The flagship will launch on January 30, which is in line with earlier rumors and reports.
Due to the global chip shortage easing up, there weren't any predicted delays for the next-generation chip. Signs pointed to early 2025 according to rumors before the reveal, which tied into the normal 18 to 24-month release cycle that Nvidia usually abides by with its GeForce graphics cards.
Just as predicted by several reports, the RTX 5090 is launching alongside the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080. This also goes against the grain of other reports that alleged the RTX 5090 would be released after the RTX 5080.
Nvidia RTX 5090: Specs
The CES presentation had plenty to say about the specs and it all sounds incredibly promising. The RTX 5090 comes with 92 billion transistors, next-gen Tensor Cores and Ray Tracing Cores, and more than double the AI processing speed of the 4090.
It also comes with 32GB of shiny new GDDR7 VRAM on a massive 512-bit memory bus and PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, it has an astonishing 1792 GB/s of memory bandwidth, with a memory speed upwards of 23.8 Gbps.
This makes the RTX 5090 arguably the first 8K graphics card given the amount of VRAM and memory bandwidth it has, which are two key specs that allow a graphics card to process the substantially larger 8K texture files needed for gaming at that resolution.
According to the CES presentation, the RTX 5090 will boast some impressive spec upgrades over the RTX 4090:
| Spec | RTX 4090 | RTX 5090 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming Multiprocessors | 128 | 192 |
| CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 24,576 |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 128 | 318 |
| Tensor Cores | 1,321 | 3,352 |
| Boost Clock | 2.52 GHz | 2.41 GHz |
| L2 Cache | 72MB | 128MB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1,008 GB/s | 1,792 GB/s |
Nvidia RTX 5090: What to expect
As we know now, the actual launch date for the RTX 5090 will be on January 30, 2025 and will retail for $1,999 (£1,999 / AU$4,039). It will release on the same day as the RTX 5080, despite previous rumors claiming the latter would come first.
Rumors did confirm that it would be a 2025 launch, at CES, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Another point recently raised is that the RTX 5080 may have a decent volume of stock available at launch, so can we hope the same might be true of the RTX 5090?
Well, probably not, as the trouble with the Blackwell flagship is that Nvidia is surely going to be prioritizing AI GPUs over it. Time will tell, and we certainly have to take all of this with a hefty grain of salt for the time being.
