NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5090 might not be a 600W gaming GPU after all

Nothing is official about the GeForce RTX 5090, NVIDIA's upcoming flagship gaming graphics card for the GeForce RTX 50 Series. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will host the company's live CES 2025 keynote on January 6. We're expected to get a full announcement, reveal, technical breakdown, release date, and pricing for the first batch of GeForce RTX 50 Series cards on that date.

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However, this hasn't stopped a flood of leaks from various sources confirming the specs and relative performance that we can expect regarding the GeForce RTX 5090. With sources pointing to over 20,000 CUDA Cores, 32GB of GDDR7 memory, and next-gen Blackwell architecture, the RTX 5090 is rumored to deliver up to 60 to 70% more performance than the current GeForce RTX 4090 flagship.

One rumor that multiple sources have confirmed over the past several months has been the GeForce RTX 5090's power consumption. Rated at 600W, the RTX 5090 is rumored to draw over 33% more power than the RTX 4090.

However, in response to the latest GeForce RTX 5070 Ti rumors, NVIDIA insider @kopite7kimi has stated that the GeForce RTX 5090 might not be a 600W GPU after all. However, the difference will not see it drop down to 500W, as kopite7kimi says there might only be a "slight decrease," which means it'll be around 550W+ either way.

It's not unusual for NVIDIA to alter or change its GPU configurations until they're formally announced. If lowering the power draw of GeForce RTX 5090 slightly doesn't affect performance in any meaningful way, I'm all for it, especially when it's expected to be powered by a single 600W power connector.

The abundance of new 1300W and 1600W power supplies recently launched for "next-generation" graphics cards suggests that the RTX 50 Series is much more power-hungry than the current Ada Lovelace generation. Even though it's a slight decrease, 575W would look much better than 600W.

• Read more: NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 just made an appearance at The Game Awards
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• Read more: GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition features a dual-slot design, impressive for a 600W GPU
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 5090 won't have huge price increase over RTX 4090 says leaker