NVIDIA 5 Series cards - Get your wallets ready boys and girls....

[SharpeXB]

35 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

I've actually told people that even a 4090 is overkill for 1080.

But I'm still getting calls - from people running 1080p - asking when I can get them a 5090 *LMAO*  Of course, I (do my best to) talk them out of it...but the fact that I have to talk them out of it illustrates the problem

Well it clearly makes very little sense to use such powerful cards for those resolutions. 

36 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

Not really.  You're confining your perspective to people more like yourself, is my guess.

According to Steam the numbers are 3840x2160 at 4.21% and 1440x2650 is 19.56%. 1080x1920 of course being the most common.

Only 1.18% of the respondents own a 4090. So that screen resolution is 4x as popular as the card, whatever you make of that. It seems more people are running 4K on a lesser card than the opposite.

The only survey I know of for flight sim players is Navigraph and it shows the 4090 as the most popular card at 14.5%! Clearly a poll of enthusiast there

48 minutes ago, kksnowbear said:

It illustrates why Nvidia marketing BS and bragging rights are completely out of control.  People are spending tons of money that many of them don't honestly have, for crap that isn't really going to do much of anything for them.  Wanting 300+ frames when they use a 165Hz (or even 240) monitor and they're getting 250 already.

Sure, the 5090 can be like the aforementioned $400 toothbrush. If you ask me the best use of such hardware is indeed to run 4K at ultra settings and high frame rates. Otherwise it’s a waste IMO

[EightyDuce]

8 minutes ago, LucShep said:

Meanwhile....

TECHPOWERUP just released an interesting article about PCIe5.0 scalling on GPUs, and whether it makes sense to spend extra on a PCIe 5.0 (Gen 5 x16) motherboard just because of newest GPUs. (spoiler alert: no need, as expected - PCIe4.0 (Gen4 x16) and PCIe3.0 (Gen3 x16) dedicated slot still all good for the newest GPUs)


https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-pci-express-scaling/

The only thing I could see is allow it to do more/same with less lanes, so more lanes can be split off to drive things like second VGA or more  NVMe drives without relying on chipset. 

As it stands 4090, and now 5090, don't saturate PCIe4x16.

[Joch1955]

first reviews are trickling out:

Nvidia RTX 5090 Rasterization Gaming Performance - Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition review: Blackwell commences its reign with a few stumbles - Page 4 | Tom's Hardware

 

includes a test of flight simulator 2020 and 2024. So far, performance increase seems to be more incremental.

[LucShep]

Honestly, the more I read/see reviews of the RTX 5090, the more I think this is suspiciously built as an AI research GPU to be more affordable for smaller businesses, who'll rack a bunch of them with the right software stack, i.e, like a cheaper solution to the much(!!) more expensive professional Nvidia Hopper GPUs?

I know the 90 series was always the "prosumer" model of the lineup and not a "gamer" product but, looking at the rasterization performance (underwhelming generational improvement), which by the way also VR relies on, gaming sometimes looks to be a secondary objective of the 5090?   
And then that insane power consumption (undervolting looks like a "must do") especially with RT?  (PCWorld got Cyberpunk@4K+RT to push it to 700w peaks on the GPU alone!)
...and all that added to the CPU bottlenecks?

For example, just look at the Hardware Canucks review below and check the stats confronting the 5090 and the 4090. It makes no sense.

I'm expecting really disapointing reviews of the RTX 5080 (and also of 5070Ti and 5070) in the next coming days/weeks.
Considering the gap between the 5080 and 5090, I'm getting more and more certain that a 5080Ti 20GB or 24GB is going to be built sometime down the line (...in six months? a year? no idea).

Regardless, considering that the RTX5090 is the "best case scenario" of the whole line-up, it does look like this really is a disapointing generation of Nvidia gaming GPUs.
I'd say to hold on to your wallets.

Review by Hardware Canucks

Review by Level1Techs

Review by Gear Seekers

 

Edited January 24 by LucShep
added video reviews

[EightyDuce]

1 hour ago, LucShep said:

Honestly, the more I read/see reviews of the RTX 5090, the more I think this is suspiciously built as an AI research GPU to be more affordable for smaller businesses, who'll rack a bunch of them with the right software stack, i.e, like a cheaper solution to the much(!!) more expensive professional Nvidia Hopper GPUs?

I know the 90 series was always the "prosumer" model of the lineup and not a "gamer" product but, looking at the rasterization performance (underwhelming generational improvement), which by the way also VR relies on, gaming sometimes looks to be a secondary objective of the 5090?   
And then that insane power consumption (undervolting looks like a "must do") especially with RT?  (PCWorld got Cyberpunk@4K+RT to push it to 700w peaks on the GPU alone!)
...and all that added to the CPU bottlenecks?

For example, just look at the Hardware Canucks review below and check the stats confronting the 5090 and the 4090. It makes no sense.

I'm expecting really disapointing reviews of the RTX 5080 (and also of 5070Ti and 5070) in the next coming days/weeks.
Considering the gap between the 5080 and 5090, I'm getting more and more certain that a 5080Ti 20GB or 24GB is going to be built sometime down the line (...in six months? a year? no idea).

Regardless, considering that the RTX5090 is the "best case scenario" of the whole line-up, it does look like this really is a disapointing generation of Nvidia gaming GPUs.
I'd say to hold on to your wallets.

Review by Hardware Canucks

Review by Level1Techs

Review by Gear Seekers

 

Its definitely geared more towards AI productivity, given the amount of VRAM vs actual processing power/speed.

[BIGNEWY]

thread cleaned, folks be nice to each other on these forums, if you can not this isnt the place for you. 

thank you 

[Joch1955]

leaked benchmarks on the 5080 suggests only marginal improvements over the 4080:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/rtx-5080-is-22-percent-faster-than-the-rtx-4080-per-leaked-benchmarks-falls-short-of-the-rtx-4090

early days yet and may also be issues with immature drivers, but performance increase of the 5xxx over the 4xxx seems disappointing so far.

I am wondering if, much like CPUs, GPUs are finally hitting a ceiling of how much raw performance you can squeeze out of the hardware.

[Blackhawk163]

10 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

leaked benchmarks on the 5080 suggests only marginal improvements over the 4080:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/rtx-5080-is-22-percent-faster-than-the-rtx-4080-per-leaked-benchmarks-falls-short-of-the-rtx-4090

early days yet and may also be issues with immature drivers, but performance increase of the 5xxx over the 4xxx seems disappointing so far.

I am wondering if, much like CPUs, GPUs are finally hitting a ceiling of how much raw performance you can squeeze out of the hardware.

Oof, what a disappointing generation so far if true. Weren’t we warned about this some time ago that the push would be towards AI and gaming was secondary? I thought I remember seeing a video and reading something like that before. 

Edited January 24 by Blackhawk163

[Pilotasso]

After reading all of the reviews, my takeaways are:

- Lowest generational performance upgrade (30% on the upper end of things) since 10 to 20 series (that upgrade was worse actually)

- May have more oxygen in the tank than people realise, there is no CPU around to feed that monster

- CPU upgrad paths have been lackluster lately as well (maybe the 7800X3D being the exception)

- But on the other side the CPU cycle hunger may due to a driver issue

- 25% performence for MSRP 25% higher than last gen, considering early prices at retailers the realistic price is actually 50% higher price than previous gen. YIKES

- Extremely low supply, dont sell your 4080+/7900+ series just yet.

- Seems focused on futurly supported AI features rather than raster (may explain why so low upgrade for current games)

- Strong on ray tracing but I always thought most games dont actually look better with it turned on, just different.

 -6950, 7900XTX, 4080 & 4090 are still great for DCS (I have a 4090 and that one is MIGHTY in DCS)

 

So it's definatly a pass for me. I will continue to milk mine for at least 2 more years.

Edited January 24 by Pilotasso

[SharpeXB]

53 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

25% performence for MSRP 25% higher than last gen

Small correction but considering inflation the price increase is more like 18%. Still not a very good bump though. 

[kksnowbear]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Small correction but considering inflation the price increase is more like 18%. Still not a very good bump though. 

The performance increase also isn't anywhere near 25% unless you're running 4k.

For others running far more common resolutions like 1080 and 1440, it's down as low as single digits. (And I'm pretty sure Nvidia hasn't said this GPU is only for people with 4k monitors...unless they intend that everyone also has to buy 4k monitors now, just to get a "meh" increase for the cost of the 5090 *and* a 4k monitor...)

Steve at HUB said it best: "After a little over two years, we're seeing no improvement in cost per frame." And that's at 4k and considering MSRP...so it's actually worse at lower resolutions and/or higher price - hard as it is to imagine worse than "no improvement"

He also discusses the MSRP vs "real" pricing toward the end of the video.  He addresses the question of a 5090 actually being available at MSRP ("...do we honestly believe the 5090 will be $2,000 US? Do we really believe that? Yeah it's probably going to be pretty damn ugly in terms of value, because at $2,000 US it's already pretty ugly...").

So, no improvement in "cost per frame", even at 4k - according to a widely respected, competent  reviewer, based on first hand measurements and factual data, as opposed to baseless speculation and uninformed opinion.

Oh, and I believe it's fair to say the 5080 is generally expected to be worse.

As I said, even before the reviews were out: Just don't do it.

Edited January 24 by kksnowbear

[SharpeXB]

What’s worth realizing about extreme prices is that just because you see something listed for that doesn’t mean it actually sold for that price. Note it says “Or best offer”

 

[kksnowbear]

Yeah...I'm gonna go with the perspective of an actual world-renowned expert, just the same.  My guess is I'm not the only one by far who will share Steve's perspective.

Maybe he just doesn't understand the science either.

PS, I believe Steve was considering MSRP in his comment regarding no increase in cost per frame.  He actually says "Yeah it's probably going to be pretty damn ugly in terms of value, because at $2,000 US it's already pretty ugly..." Perhaps you missed that.

But, like me, his comments indicate he seems to believe MSRP is a farce.

In any case, the more someone actually does pay, it just gets worse than "no improvement".

Edited January 24 by kksnowbear

[Pilotasso]

1 hour ago, kksnowbear said:

The performance increase also isn't anywhere near 25% unless you're running 4k.

For others running far more common resolutions like 1080 and 1440, it's down as low as single digits. (And I'm pretty sure Nvidia hasn't said this GPU is only for people with 4k monitors...unless they intend that everyone also has to buy 4k monitors now, just to get a "meh" increase for the cost of the 5090 *and* a 4k monitor...)

[...]

...because current CPU's cant keep up with this GPU at those resolution (unlike 4 years ago they got pretty stagnant as of late), though granted if you get a 5090 you probabbly got a high end monitor as well (hardly anyone serious in this hobby plays @ 1080p anymore).

[kksnowbear]

17 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

...because current CPU's cant keep up with this GPU at those resolution (unlike 4 years ago they got pretty stagnant as of late), though granted if you get a 5090 you probabbly got a high end monitor as well (hardly anyone serious in this hobby plays @ 1080p anymore).

Actually, the overwhelming majority of gamers still plays at lower resolutions than 4k*.  Competitive gamers in particular almost universally prefer 1080p.  Cheaper and much higher frame rates and refresh rates.  Many of them make money gaming...so that seems pretty serious to me.

And the fact that CPUs can't keep up only makes the value proposition of more expensive GPUs even less.

*According to at least one source that's fairly reputable, anyhow.

Edited January 24 by kksnowbear

[Pilotasso]

yeah and over 600W, even if I was making a new build right now that is a deal breaker for me, I have a 4090 and I think I already am borderline limit for my old electrical grid. 

[kksnowbear]

39 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

yeah and over 600W, even if I was making a new build right now that is a deal breaker for me, I have a 4090 and I think I already am borderline limit for my old electrical grid. 

I really hate to say so...but if you're still using the Seasonic 760w PSU in your sig, then I am all but certain it's too small for a 4090...

4090s are known to draw surges of 700w (GPU alone).  This is among the reasons new PSU specs require units to withstand "excursions" of 2-3 *times* the rated output of the PSU.

Unless I'm mistaken, any 4090 will carry a manufacturer's recommendation of at least 850W, and some actually recommend 1000w for certain models.  I personally have tested two different name brand high-end 850W PSUs that shut down when loaded by a 4090.

I have built machines around or installed 4090s in five machines now, and have never recommended or used less than a 1000W PSU, nor would I.

I hope you can accept this is a genuine effort to be helpful and I wish you the best. 

[Pilotasso]

Ah you must be seeing my old specs (Some of my profile settings were migrated from the old forum and having trouble updating them). The specs are now:

CPU: AMD RYZEN 5950X (stock voltage, 1800Mhz i-Fabric), CPU history: 1700X->2700X->3900X->5950X
RAM: 64 GB 3600Mhz (two 2x16Gb kits) of trident Z neo RGB @3600Mhz CL 14 CR=1T
MOBO: ASUS CROSSHAIR HERO VI AM4
GFX: ASUS ROG Strix 4090 (non OC)
Cooler: Corsair H115i Capelix 280mm AIO
Storage: WD 850X 2TB M.2 SSD+WD 12Gb red HDD
PSU: SEASONIC PRIME GX-1000W
Case: PHANTEKS P600
Monitor: SAMSUNG NEo G8 Mini-LED (4K 240Hz 10 bit color HDR1000)

 

A "few" updates since 2018

 

Continuing my reasoning, a 5090 would consume nearly as much power alone as this entire system. I cannot go that high with my electrical grid is old and power limited. Sometimes I have to turn down the heater to play games, or stop playing games when I have to use the oven or the washing machine or lights will go out 

Edited January 24 by Pilotasso

[kksnowbear]

9 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

Ah you must be seeing my old specs (Some of my profile settings were migrated from the old forum and having trouble updating them). The specs are now:

CPU: AMD RYZEN 5950X (stock voltage, 1800Mhz i-Fabric), CPU history: 1700X->2700X->3900X->5950X
RAM: 64 GB 3600Mhz (two 2x16Gb kits) of trident Z neo RGB @3600Mhz CL 14 CR=1T
MOBO: ASUS CROSSHAIR HERO VI AM4
GFX: ASUS ROG Strix 4090 (non OC)
Cooler: Corsair H115i Capelix 280mm AIO
Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 1TB M.2+6GB WD 6Gb red
PSU: SEASONIC PRIME GX-1000W
Case: PHANTEKS P600
Monitor: SAMSUNG NEo G8 Mini-LED (4K 240Hz 10 bit color)

 

A "few" updates since 2018

*whew* Hey that's great!  Thank goodness

[kksnowbear]

29 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

Continuing my reasoning, a 5090 would consume nearly as much power alone as this entire system. I cannot go that high with my electrical grid is old and power limited. Sometimes I have to turn down the heater to play games, or stop playing games when I have to use the oven or the washing machine or lights will go out 

Ohhh my...missed that part.  That's not so great.  Well...I hope maybe it'll improve at some point

Edited January 24 by kksnowbear

[Panzerlang]

$2800.
 

 

[EightyDuce]

55 minutes ago, Panzerlang said:

$2800.
 

 

About the same as the Asus 4090 Strix which was $2499... $700 above the FE MSRP. Astral the top-end model from Asus that replaced Strix. Pricing pretty much in line with last years model. 

[Pilotasso]

have you actually found stores with inventory and price stickers on them? because announced MSRP is one thing, actual practiced price is another entirely. I suspect there will be huge margins given like last gen was BUT... put 600-800€ on top of that. So far this is what I am seeing.

 

I got my ROG strix at launch for 2200€, but the placeholder price (no inventory, no order button="comming soon") for the few stores already listing it has them 2800-3000€ (doesnt mean they will even honor that when they actually get them). Yeah.

Edited January 25 by Pilotasso

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, Pilotasso said:

have you actually found stores with inventory and price stickers on them

We are almost a week away from the release date, so any stores selling them now would be breaking the rules.

And the Strix is the most over the top air cooled model, for those who don't care about value per dollar. It's not relevant to a MSRP discussion, since it is not a MSRP-model of the card. 

[kksnowbear]

A 5090 is still a 5090, and it's perfectly relevant to a discussion about 50-series cards.

Which is what this is.