NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition Unboxing

[TheinsanegamerN]

But now it needs clearance for air from both sides of the card.

With this new design, Nvidia gets all the praise for a slimmer card, while case manufacturers get all the headaches for airflow problems.

Those headaches didnt stop case manufacturers from getting rid of side ventilation just as big open frame air coolers started hitting their stride, nor did it stop them from reducing airflow with silly designs as TDPs kept creeping up.

I'm sure they'll be fine. Most builds use ATX cases with nothing else in them anyway.

 

[Bwaze]

Hard to get any kind of enthusiasm, if the Nvidia's own marketing material only shows 25 - 30 % performance increase for a product that costs 25 % more...

But hey, I bet reviewers will find a way to spin this as the best thing since sliced bread.

Look, you can't even buy RTX 4090 for MSRP, right?

And AI?

And fake frames?

That's gotta count for something? 25 % is the new 50 %, in the Era of Jensen's Law, Moore's dead?

Gotta give it the highest accolades? Right, guys?

 

[ffolekram]

How does PCIE pins connect to the board? is this part of information still under NDA?

 

[Bwaze]

How does PCIE pins connect to the board? is this part of information still under NDA?

Just a simple cable with proprietary connector. You can see it in this Gamer's Nexus video:

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Hard to get any kind of enthusiasm, if the Nvidia's own marketing material only shows 25 - 30 % performance increase for a product that costs 25 % more...

.... And AI? ... And fake frames?

What if the current advanced stuff like path tracing required a massive 2 kW GPU?

To reach the same performance (at the screen), you would have 2 choices:

A massive extremely expensive 2kW GPU

A smaller less expensive 600W GPU with a lot of AI and frame generation.

What if AI and frame generation is the only reasonable option how to get the perfomance today? If it is so, you really need to step up mostly in these two categories, and less in the raw rasterisation.


And of course, this GPU could have been developed for different roles than gaming and gamers could be happy that this card is even usable for them and that Nvidia will sell it to them.

 

[The Von Matrices]

What if the current advanced stuff like path tracing required a massive 2 kW GPU?

To reach the same performance (at the screen), you would have 2 choices:

A massive extremely expensive 2kW GPU

A smaller less expensive 600W GPU with a lot of AI and frame generation.

What if AI and frame generation the only reasonable option how to get the perfomance today? If it is so, you really need to step up mostly in these two categories, and less in the raw rasterisation.


And of course, this GPU could have been developed for different roles than gaming and gamers could be happy that this card is even usable for them and that Nvidia will sell it to them.

In all honesty, my reaction to him is that programmers have been using shortcuts to achieve the same results with lower computational costs ever since the dawn of the computer. The use of AI frame generation is no different a motive than this.

Even the most basic computational concepts like the use of floating point math instead of integer math is based upon increasing performance at the cost of some precision.

 

[Bwaze]

Should we also count the gaming on TVs with motion smoothing that insert fake frames to achieve higher frame rate? It's terrible image quality with tons of ghosting, but a frame is s frame, right?

 

[BoggledBeagle]

frame is a frame, right?

Yes. You have your input in the game, the game runs somehow on a computer and you have your video and audio outputs. If the game runs as intended and there are no delays and other errors in inputs and outputs, I really do not care, what happens in the computer and how exactly each individual frame was generated.

Honestly my brain is so slow, that I have no time to carefuly inspect and evaluate each frame I see. Yours may be quicker.

 

[AusWolf]

The amount of over-engineering that went into this card is crazy. It looks like Nvidia spent 10% of the development time on unifying the shaders' FP/INT capabilities, 30% on Fake Frames (TM) version 635764, and the remaining 60% on designing a PCB and cooler for the 5090 FE that no mere mortal has a chance of servicing by themselves.

 

[JustBenching]

Yes. You have your input in the game, the game runs somehow on a computer and you have your video and audio outputs. If the game runs as intended and there are no delays and other errors in inputs and outputs, I really do not care, what happens in the computer and how exactly each individual frame was generated.

Honestly my brain is so slow, that I have no time to carefuly inspect and evaluate each frame I see. Yours may be quicker.

The problem is that FG doesn't solve the same problem / problems that a traditional frame does. It's not a frame produced by the engine, so no calculations are done during the FG frame. If you are clicking your mouse, it's not registering during the FG frame, the opponents aren't taking damage, aren't moving etc. It just offers smoother image. Which is great - especially in CPU limited scenarios, but im just saying we shouldn't conflate the 2, it's really not the same thing.

 

[Arkz]

Looks nice, except the boring office looking typeface 4000 introduced. Bring back the old one.

 

[Vya Domus]

The Mac studio that I'm using at work came in a box that's intricate as f***

Looks cheap as hell for something you probably paid well over 2000$ for, it's the same with this.

These companies claim that they care about the environment as though a cheap ass cardboard box makes a difference compared to whatever goes into making the actual product. I wonder if whenever Jensen needs to go somewhere does he get into a tiny paper plane or a giant hunk of metal guzzling a couple tons of kerosene.

 

[AVATARAT]

Just a simple cable with proprietary connector. You can see it in this Gamer's Nexus video:

The main question here is - why liquid metal + air cooling and not water cooling?
Probably because with thermopaste + air they overshoot the cooling point because the cards are too hot?

If yes - that's a bit stupid and water cooling only is the best option here.

 

[dyonoctis]

These companies claim that they care about the environment as though a cheap ass cardboard box makes a difference compared to whatever goes into making the actual product. I wonder if whenever Jensen needs to go somewhere does he get into a tiny paper plane or a giant hunk of metal guzzling a couple tons of kerosene.

The EU has been working on a new set of rules about the kind of packaging that will be allowed to be used if someone wants to sell something in the EU, so some people seem to believe that packing can make a difference overall. I don't think that they believe that it can offset the harm that manufacturing a product does, but they've reached a point where they will get any win that might give a few more years before we reach a global temp that will become dangerous.

Because there's no avoiding the fact that bleeding-edge technology is bad on that aspect. TSMC existence itself does harm, but that's a Pandora's box that will never be closed, our tech oligarch will make sure of that.
Lisa SU is also flying around on a private jet, while AMD has a whole page talking about sustainability. At least they started to chill on the Threadripper packaging

 

[Bomby569]

The EU has been working on a new set of rules about the kind of packaging that will be allowed to be used if someone wants to sell something in the EU, so some people seem to believe that packing can make a difference overall. I don't think that they believe that it can offset the harm that manufacturing a product does, but they've reached a point where they will get any win that might give a few more years before we reach a global temp that will become dangerous.

Because there's no avoiding the fact that bleeding-edge technology is bad on that aspect. TSMC existence itself does harm, but that's a Pandora's box that will never be closed, our tech oligarch will make sure of that.
Lisa SU is also flying around on a private jet, while AMD has a whole page talking about sustainability. At least they started to chill on the Threadripper packaging

i bought a product with full paper packaging and greewashing words about how much they care about the environment, and yet the battery is shit, they don't replace it, to get one and replace it yourself you basically have to destroy the thing. But hey we care about the environment. Now go buy another one and just throw that one in the e-waste pile.

greenwashing is the key word when the packaging is made off paper but consumes 600watts

 

[Assimilator]

Regardless of what you may think about NVIDIA's pricing/DLSS/packaging, I think we can all agree that squeezing a 600W-TDP chip into a 2-slot cooling solution is an impressive technological achievement. I definitely want to see the temperatures and noise results for this card.

Could someone with a more technical mind than mine help me understand how one would water cool the PCB? It seems like that angled power connector would get in the way of a water block, or did they purposefully design the FEs not to be water cooled?

The FE has always been an NVIDIA design study, why should they care about water cooling? Buy a boring partner model if you want that.

 

[AVATARAT]

Regardless of what you may think about NVIDIA's pricing/DLSS/packaging, I think we can all agree that squeezing a 600W-TDP chip into a 2-slot cooling solution is an impressive technological achievement. I definitely want to see the temperatures and noise results for this card.


The FE has always been an NVIDIA design study, why should they care about water cooling? Buy a boring partner model if you want that.

Can you help me figure out what is "impressive" - could they have accidentally changed the physics?

 

[Bwaze]

I'm getting PS4 flashbacks - Nvidia's RTX 5090 FE reportedly uses 600W of power and "sounds like a jet engine"

As reported by Tomasz Gawronski on X, discussions within Chiphell (a Chinese forum page about the latest PC hardware) suggest that Nvidia's RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU will use 600W of power while being much louder compared to the 4090. This is based on what appears to be an upcoming review with the embargo set for January 24, with a post translated from Chinese that says "The editor cursed while testing... After all, the power consumption increased, the current increased, and the screaming also increased~".

Might be completely made up, of course.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

"The editor cursed while testing... After all, the power consumption increased, the current increased, and the screaming also increased~".

Might be completely made up, of course.

This does not agree with this slide, which indicates the cooler should be exceptionally quiet.



Perhaps by screaming he meant coil whine?

 

[Vya Domus]

This is based on what appears to be an upcoming review with the embargo set for January 24, with a post translated from Chinese that says "The editor cursed while testing... After all, the power consumption increased, the current increased, and the screaming also increased~".

Might be completely made up, of course.

4090's heatsink can better dissipate heat, there is no doubt about that, there is so much more surface area, would not be surprised if it's louder or just running a lot hotter.

 

[Bwaze]

"Sounds like jet engine" is also a supposed translation from there. But as I said, it might be completely fake, with strong NDAs there are always some jokers that get their attention on forums by providing "leaks" they made up themselves...

 

[Vya Domus]

This does not agree with this slide, which indicates the cooler should be exceptionally quiet.

Nothing agrees with that slide because it makes no sense, it implies the noise increases exponentially somehow close to 500W, according to them a 4090 FE probably generates one gazillion decibels or whatever at 500W lol. Just another bs graph like the rest.

 

[AVATARAT]

"Sounds like jet engine" is also a supposed translation from there. But as I said, it might be completely fake, with strong NDAs there are always some jokers that get their attention on forums by providing "leaks" they made up themselves...

FE 5090 = liquid metal
Asus tuf 5090 - Phase-Change GPU Thermal Pad + 12 heat pipes

I think a jet engine is quite normal in this situation

 

[Assimilator]

Can you help me figure out what is "impressive" - could they have accidentally changed the physics?

If you think going from a 3-slot cooler with a lower TDP to a 2-slot cooler with a higher TDP isn't impressive, then you aren't thinking.

 

[Chomiq]

I'm getting PS4 flashbacks - Nvidia's RTX 5090 FE reportedly uses 600W of power and "sounds like a jet engine"

As reported by Tomasz Gawronski on X, discussions within Chiphell (a Chinese forum page about the latest PC hardware) suggest that Nvidia's RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU will use 600W of power while being much louder compared to the 4090. This is based on what appears to be an upcoming review with the embargo set for January 24, with a post translated from Chinese that says "The editor cursed while testing... After all, the power consumption increased, the current increased, and the screaming also increased~".

Might be completely made up, of course.

Might be that "screaming" is actually coil whine?