Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 review: A video card with AI

Whether you call this a victory or not depends on your refresh rate. People with 4K displays with 60Hz refresh will likely be happy with most of this, but I can imagine that some people with 120Hz displays will have to tweak settings to consistently stay above 100fps. It certainly seems like true 4K gaming at the highest level is still not quite achievable with current hardware, at least without the aid of technology like framerate generation that avoids the problem.

My main gaming monitor is a 1440p Ultra HD display with a 120Hz refresh rate, and I know a lot of my friends have gone in the same direction. It’s easier to achieve consistently high frame rates, but it’s also a cinematic experience, on a single screen, that can easily handle two windows for non-gaming work.

Screenshot of chart provided by Brad Burke

It’s safe to expect 90-120fps performance across most games at this resolution, which is great news for gamers looking to get the most out of their current monitor. Single player, heavy cinematic games like Cyberpunk 2022 and Star Wars Outlaws They’re still on the cutting edge of graphical fidelity, so I’m not necessarily disappointed that they have room to grow, especially when they already look so good. Online games and shooters such as Marvel competitors It runs smoothly without a lot of help, and it’s arguably more important to have stable frame rates in those games.

Is it worth it to you?

Anyone considering an RTX 5090, Founders Edition, or otherwise, should really think about their budget first. The FE version of the card will cost you $2,000 if you buy it directly from Nvidia, and partner cards with overclocking and liquid cooling will likely be more expensive. You’ll also need to spend about $1,000 to buy a monitor that really takes advantage of your newfound graphics power, and perhaps a new 1,000W or 1,200W GPU. This means you could be looking at a $3,500 bill before you have any other parts, and performance aside, I find it hard to imagine Start any build like this.

Photo: Brad Burke

The RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will hit the market at the end of January, with more budget-friendly cards arriving soon after. Without spending time with other RTX 50 series cards, I can’t speak to their relative performance, but I do know that their prices look more attractive. I expect these cards to support multi-frame generation out of the box, which is great news if you just want to sit back and see smooth gameplay.

Previous Founders Editions haven’t stayed in stock for long, so you may have to wake up early on the 30th to get one of these if you want one. The whole situation makes the RTX 5090 look less like a top-end 50-series and more like a piece of art.

It’s the GPU I’d build while daydreaming about a new rig, not the first part I’d choose in a real-life build on PCPartPicker. If the price doesn’t give you a moment’s pause, by all means enjoy your new GPU. For everyone else, I’ll wait and see what the rest of the new GPUs look like before jumping in.