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

Ray tracing 8-game average FPS

Here we present frame rate figures for each graphics card, averaged across all 8 ray traced games on test today. These figures can disguise significant variations in performance from game to game, but provide a useful overview of the sort of performance you can expect at each resolution tested.

Overall performance with ray tracing enabled scales very similarly to what we saw from the rasterised numbers. I was expecting a slightly bigger gain, relative to the 4090, when enabling RT, but at 1440p the 5090 is 25% faster, and that increases to 29% at 4K, which is the exact same margin of difference we saw in our 12-game rasterisation average.

Cost per frame, launch MSRP data

Please note this only compares ray traced performance and value.

Interestingly, overall value does look considerably better when looking at the data based on our ray traced numbers. Granted, the 5090 is still hardly jaw-dropping in this regard, but its performance being so much better than anything AMD has to offer makes it a much better value if ray tracing is your primary concern. It remains to be seen if RDNA 4 is able to change that!

Cost per frame, current pricing data

The picture does change slightly when looking at the data based on current pricing, mainly because a lot of GPUs have received hefty discounts over the course of their life cycles, but the 5090 is still middle of the pack at 4K.

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