Nvidia RTX 5090 Review: Ray Tracing, DLSS 4, and Raw Power

1. Introduction2. Meet the RTX 5090 Founders Edition3. Testing Methodology4. Alan Wake II5. Black Myth: Wukong6. Cyberpunk 20777. Final Fantasy XVI8. Forza Horizon 59. Ghost of Tsushima10. Horizon Forbidden West11. The Last of Us Part 112. A Plague Tale: Requiem13. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 214. Starfield15. Total War: Warhammer III16. Performance Summary (12-Game Average)17. Cost Per Frame Analysis18. Ray Tracing: Alan Wake II19. Ray Tracing: Black Myth: Wukong20. Ray Tracing: Cyberpunk 207721. Ray Tracing: F1 2422. Ray Tracing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart23. Ray Tracing: Returnal24. Ray Tracing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider25. Ray Tracing: Star Wars Outlaws26. Ray Tracing Performance Summary27. DLSS 4 Testing28. AI & Productivity Benchmarks29. Clock Speed30. GPU Temperatures31. Acoustics32. Power Draw: 1080p33. Power Draw: 1440p34. Power Draw: 2160p (4K)35. Performance per Watt: 1080p36. Performance per Watt: 1440p37. Performance per Watt: 2160p (4K)38. Total System Power Draw39. Closing Thoughts40. View All Pages

The MSRPs

Using the average frame rate data presented earlier in the review, here we look at the cost per frame using the UK MSRP launch prices for each GPU. Please note this only compares rasterised performance and value.

With an asking price of £1939 I don't think anyone was expecting the RTX 5090 to come in as a cost per frame champion, so it's not surprise to see that overall value is fairly poor here. I really don't think ‘value' is what the RTX 5090 is all about though, so I don't see this as much of an issue. Even considering the price increase over the RTX 4090, cost per frame does still see an improvement, 11% at 4K, to be exact.

Current retail pricing

It's a similar story when looking at cost per frame using current retail prices. RTX 4090 stock is increasingly hard to find, so prices have crept up to the £2000 mark here in the UK. As such, the RTX 5090 looks like even better value, though it's still second bottom on our chart.

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