NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080 leaks: launching late January 2025, probably costs $1999

NVIDIA is expected to unveil its next-generation GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards at CES 2025, officially launching and being excitedly installed into their desktop gaming PCs in late January 2025.

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In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're learning that an NVIDIA retail partner source tell him that they were told that the unveiling "will be at CES" with a launch "likely to follow weeks (not months) later". Another source corroborated that, saying that the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 would be announced at CES 2025.

The biggest takeaway for me here is that the second source told MLID that RTX 5090 pricing "might be priced on the lower end of the leaked spectrum". NVIDIA's ultra-enthusiast GeForce RTX 5090 in previous price leaks at somewhere between $1999 and $2499, so the "lower end of the spectrum" there suggests $1999 (or so) pricing.

MLID's sources said that the GeForce RTX 5070 series graphics cards are expected to be teased, and then fully revealed in January, while this same source said that NVIDIA is selling retail partners that GPUs above the RTX 5070 Ti "are really for professionals".

• Read more: RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070 expected to launch in early 2025
• Read more: RTX 5090 details: GB202 GPU is 744mm2, 22% larger than AD102 in RTX 4090
• Read more: RTX 5090 leaked specs: 32GB GDDR7, over 20K CUDA cores, and 600W power
• Read more: RTX 50 for Q1 2025 launch: 5090, 5080 in January, 5070 in February, 5060 in March
• Read more: RTX 50 pricing leak: 5090 for $1999-$2499, 5080 for $1199-$1499, 5070 for $599-$699

This is another big point if this source is correct: if NVIDIA is telling retail partners that the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are "really for professionals" then we can expect swollen pricing on the RTX 5080 (and more so) the RTX 5090. However, inside the RTX 5090 will have a rumored 32GB of ultra-fast next-gen GDDR7 memory, 20,000+ CUDA cores, the new Blackwell GPU architecture, upgrades across the board, and performance that is absolutely dominant.

NVIDIA has no clear competitor to its GeForce RTX 4090 let alone a monster RTX 5090, so the price ceiling is going to be increased, and no matter how much everyone complains about it, they'll be the hottest graphics cards to buy of 2025. You want a new 4K 240Hz or 4K 360Hz+ gaming monitor? The GeForce RTX 5090 is going to be THE card for that.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 details so far:

20,000+ CUDA cores: With a rumored 21,760 CUDA cores, we're looking at a big upgrade over the 16,384 inside of the RTX 4090. Not just more CUDA cores, but upgraded Blackwell GPU architecture cores over the current Ada Lovelace GPU cores inside of the RTX 4090.

32GB of next-gen GDDR7 memory: NVIDIA is the first to use the ultra-fast GDDR7 memory standard, with the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 pegged to have an incredible 32GB of GDDR7 memory. This is another big upgrade over the RTX 4090 which has 24GB of GDDR6X memory.

Up to 2.0TB/sec memory bandwidth: We're hearing that the RTX 5090 will have a monster 512-bit memory bus, which enables an insane ceiling of up to 2.0TB/sec of memory bandwidth if the RTX 5090 uses 32Gbps GDDR7 memory modules. Another giant upgrade over the RTX 4090 which has 1.0TB/sec of memory bandwidth in comparison.

600W of power: Another big upgrade for the RTX 5090 is the 600W of power, which is another 150W of power on top of the 450W TDP of the RTX 4090. We did see custom models and overclocked RTX 4090 cards pushing up to 600W+ of power, but the RTX 5090 is going to be another level again on top of that. Hopefully we see 600W+++ custom AIB models of the RTX 5090.

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.

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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.