NVIDIA RTX 5090 could launch in Q3 2024 to crush AMD in the gaming GPU arena

NVIDIA's RTX 5090 graphics card could be out a lot sooner than expected, and will certainly be arriving this year, a YouTube leaker reckons.

This is the latest video from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) in which the leaker asserts that Blackwell is currently being validated by Team Green, and that includes the RTX 5090.

Meaning that in a few months' time, we can expect the Blackwell flagship GPU to be through that validation process - and it will definitely launch this year, MLID tells us.

Indeed, the RTX 5090 will be ready for launch in the fall of 2024, and could even sneak out in Q3, or that possibility is mentioned. Even if it's a scenario of a so-called 'paper launch' with little stock available (so it'll inevitably sell out in a flash, as price gougers go to work).

Q4 is more likely on balance, but MLID really underlines that Blackwell GPUs are on track, hence why Q3 could be in the frame as a possibility - even if just to double down on NVIDIA's dominance in terms of the fastest desktop graphics cards, and 'crush' AMD.

As we've heard before from MLID, the likelihood is that the RTX 5090 will be 50% to 70% faster than the RTX 4090, making it a truly phenomenal performer when you consider how the existing Lovelace flagship graphics card already flies for frame rates.

That's for rasterization performance, and ray tracing gains could well be even larger. If other rumors are to be believed, Blackwell's flagship could be twice as fast for ray tracing or indeed even quicker than that.

This will be the GPU to crack 4K, 240Hz gaming, MLID further notes.

Shade thrown

Exciting times, then? It seems very much that way, and MLID again throws some shade at other leakers out there who are doubting that NVIDIA will get Blackwell GPUs out this year - and suggesting the possibility of a slide to 2025. That isn't going to happen, we couldn't be hearing that any more firmly from MLID.

With AMD's RDNA 4 graphics cards not expected until perhaps Q3 of 2024 (or maybe Q4), this raises the possibility that NVIDIA could have the RTX 5090 out before Team Red's next generation of GPUs arrives.

And that really would leave AMD eating NVIDIA's dust, although that said, even if RDNA 4 graphics cards do hit the shelves before the RTX 5090 - they won't remotely compete with it. The fastest RDNA 4 model, Navi 48, won't be as quick as the existing AMD flagship RX 7900 XTX, after all (if the rumors are right - though it'll be close).

Even so, it'd be a bad look for AMD to let NVIDIA get its Blackwell flagship out before Team Red's mid-rangers for RDNA 4 appear - toting plenty of bang for buck (we hope) - there can be no doubting that.

Read more: NVIDIA's RTX 3060 could be staying around as a budget option to tackle AMD's rival low-end GPUs