The RTX 5090 - Our Biggest Review Ever

The video opens with a bold declaration of the RTX 5090’s arrival, highlighting its flagship positioning and a $2,000 price tag, setting the stage for a thorough, multi-angle review. The team immediately dives into performance at 1440p, noting that the new card maintains solid frame rates but often lands in the underwhelming category in several games, with only modest gains over the 4090 in Vulkan titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and F1 24. They point out that at 1440p the card can feel overkill for mainstream CPUs, emphasizing that a top-end CPU may be required to unlock the card’s full potential, which slightly tempers the enthusiasm for the upgrade. Moving into 4K, the panel discusses stronger performance in titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2, where the 5090 delivers playable or close-to-playable framerates and shows a meaningful benefit versus previous generations, particularly in ray tracing. The discussion then shifts to architecture and features, where Blackwell’s AI-driven neural rendering concepts are explained, including the Cooperative Vectors API with DirectX and the promise of neural shaders that could enhance geometry and ray tracing calculations. A thorough breakdown follows of how the hardware upgrades,fifth-gen tensor cores, upgraded RT cores, and GDDR7 memory with PAM3 signaling,drive power efficiency and memory bandwidth, while still managing a substantial thermal envelope. The hosts then pivot to DLSS 4 and Multi-Frame Gen, detailing how the transformer-based model and a refined optical flow approach aim to deliver higher frame rates with reduced ghosting, though real-world visuals can vary and artifacts may appear in some scenes. The discussion on content creation showcases improved encoder/decoder capabilities, better 422 chroma sampling, and notable performance uplifts in Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, signaling that the card is not only a gaming powerhouse but also a strong productivity tool for professionals. In the concluding sections, the hosts weigh the value proposition, comparing the 5090 to the 4090 and noting the price-to-performance tradeoffs, while acknowledging that the broader RTX 50-series lineup could face a rocky reception among enthusiasts. They end with a candid take: for developers and power users who can leverage the new features to make money, the 5090 is compelling, but for gamers seeking a simple upgrade, it may be harder to justify given the price and the more incremental performance gains. The video closes with a brand plug and a nod to related coverage on frame generation, inviting viewers to explore asynchronous frame gen and other related topics on their channel.

Topics · hardware review · graphics cards · gaming performance · ai acceleration · power and thermals · dlss · consumer tech