NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 5090 rumored to have base GPU clock near 2.9GHz

NVIDIA's next-generation ultra-enthusiast GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card is rumored to have a base clock that will be near 2.9GHz, meaning it will trounce every other graphics card on the market when it arrives later this year.

5

The new rumor is coming from Chiphell forum user "Panzerlied," who has previously provided leaks on the GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPUs. In the post, the user said that the "base frequency of 5090 is almost 2.9G" which has everyone excited.

NVIDIA's current-gen flagship GeForce RTX 4090 has a base GPU clock of 2235MHz, so if the RTX 5090 rolls out with a 2.9GHz+ base clock, we're looking at a 30% improvement in base GPU clocks alone. Add on that NVIDIA will be using next-generation GDDR7 memory that Micron has teased will provide 30% gains in gaming in both rasterization and ray tracing, we're in for quite the performance leap with the RTX 5090.

• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen RTX 5090 rumors: GDDR7 on 512-bit bus, RTX 5080 will have 256-bit bus

We're expecting to see the next-gen GB202 "Blackwell" GPU inside of the flagship GeForce RTX 5090, with a huge 448-bit memory interface and 28GB of next-gen GDDR7 memory. If we compare this to the 384-bit memory bus and 24GB of GDDR6X memory on the RTX 4090, the excitement for the RTX 5090 is building rather quick.

4K 240FPS gaming shouldn't be out of the question -- not for all games, obviously -- but the new RTX 5090 should carve through 4K 120FPS and 4K 240FPS like a super-hot knife through butter.

5

GDDR7 details: Samsung has its next-gen GDDR7 memory ready for NVIDIA, with GDDR7 memory speeds of 28Gbps and 32Gbps. We could see the faster 32Gbps GDDR7 on the RTX 5090 and 28Gbps GDDR7 on the RTX 5080, and probably on the rest of the RTX 50 series GPU fleet.

• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will be available within a few weeks of each other
• Read more: NVIDIA testing 250W to 600W coolers for next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 5080 rumored to now launch BEFORE the RTX 5090
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen RTX 5090, RTX 5080 Laptop GPUs rumored with 16GB VRAM
• Read more: NVIDIA rumored to ONLY launch GeForce RTX 5090 this year
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080 rumored for Computex 2024 reveal
• Read more: NVIDIA to unveil top-end GeForce RTX 5090, and high-end RTX 5080 at first later this year

4K performance: NVIDIA's next-generation ultimate gaming GPU in the GeForce RTX 5090 should have 50-70% more performance across the board compared to the RTX 4090, especially at the higher-end 4K resolution. 4K 120FPS gaming should be an even easier achievement for the RTX 5090 than it is for the RTX 4090. We've got 4K 240FPS coming this year and in 2025, so the RTX 5090 will be the GPU of choice for 4K 240FPS gaming in the future.

5

RT performance: This is where the biggest performance improvements of the next-gen Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs will come: ray tracing. Expect some rather large 2-3x performance gains using RT, probably 4x or more in some cases with the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 against their RTX 40 series counterparts. Throw new DLSS 4 on top, and you've got some wowzers RT performance.

DLSS 4: This is probably my personal favorite part of the excitement of next-gen GPUs from NVIDIA, AI-powered upscaling with a next-gen DLSS 4 that works only on the new Blackwell-based RTX 50 series GPUs. We should expect even higher image quality than offered by DLSS 3.x and new levels of performance with DLSS 4 enabled on a new RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 graphics card.

Power efficiency: NVIDIA's current-gen GeForce RTX 4090 can use anywhere between 450W and 600W of power depending on the model and overclocking, but the new GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs will offer far more performance-per-watt of the leading RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 SUPER graphics cards. Another exciting part to see unravel in the near future.