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 new RTX 5090 Founders Edition ships in a compact eco-friendly box. Inside, a smaller box houses the quick-start guide and 4x 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapter.

The graphics card itself remains as stylish as ever – if not more so this time around. The overall design language is similar to the likes of the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 Super, but there are a few differences. For one, while mostly black, there are some dark grey accents on the shroud, like the x-shaped bracket that sits between the two fans.

The fans are obviously now both positioned on the front side of the card, rather than one on the top and one on the bottom. Nvidia calls this the ‘double flow through' design, as the PCB has been moved to the dead centre of the card itself to allow maximum airflow to pass through the heatsink.

Image: Nvidia.

Above you can see an ‘exploded' view of the design – it's quite a feat of engineering. By shrinking the PCB to something barely bigger than my palm, Nvidia has been able to place in centrally, with the GPU and memory cooled by a 3D Vapour Chamber. Five heat-pipes extend from either side of the vapour chamber, and the two fans are able to blow air directly through the fin stack with far less resistance than the previous Founders Edition design.

Nvidia also claims that this new innovative thermal design has allowed them to shrink the card so it's now only a dual-slot thickness again, when the 4090 was a triple-slot card. It measures 304mm long and 137mm tall.

We can also get a look at the back of the card – it doesn't feature much of a backplate in the traditional sense given the flow through design, but it feels very robust in the hand and continues the industrial design.

It's fascinating to see that Nvidia has also adjusted the height of the fin stack on the back of the card – you can just about make it out from the above images, but essentially they've ‘scooped' out the central area of the fins, making it concave. It looks very cool but is also designed to improve heat dissipation.

As expected, power is delivered by a single 12VHPWR, AKA PCIe 5.0, connector, rated for up to 600W.

Video outputs are also upgraded for this generation, with the RTX 5090 offering three DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 connectors and one HDMI 2.1.

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