The brand new RTX 5090 graphics card from Lao Huang has arrived, with significantly improved performance, but the price is staggering.

Twenty years ago, perhaps even Huang Renxun himself could not have imagined that his own graphics card would be so popular in fields other than gaming.

Following more than ten years of mining frenzy, graphics cards from the GTX 10 series to the RTX 30 series were all involved, and even the LHR (Lite Hash Rate) graphics cards, once considered saviors for gamers, were also cracked by eager miners, becoming tools in mining operations.

After the mining craze subsided, the demand for large models promptly followed suit. Whether it was major manufacturers training their own large models or ordinary consumers tinkering with local large models at home, Huang's high-end graphics cards were definitely indispensable. This has also put mild gamers who just want to buy a graphics card in a dilemma of "high-end graphics cards are too expensive, and there are no new products in the low-end category."

Brothers, if you think it makes sense, type "understood" in the chat!

Of course, even if the existing graphics cards have already exceeded the purchasing power of gamers, Nvidia will definitely not stop its graphics card release plan.

According to the latest episode of the well-known podcast "Moore's Law is Dead" on the foreign website, Nvidia will indeed launch the RTX 50 series graphics cards this year, but only the GeForce RTX 5090, a top-of-the-line consumer product based on the Blackwell architecture, is expected to be released separately in the mid to late 2025.

What's going on? I haven't even used the RTX 4090 yet, and the new generation of flagship cards is coming?

Here comes the new king of cards!

For the consumer market, Nvidia has held the throne of "graphics card king" for many years.

Oh, by the way, Nvidia also dominates the non-consumer market for computing cards. It can be said that in this area, AMD, Intel, and other scattered small factories combined are not enough to compete with Huang Renxun alone.

Of course, while for most players, the "graphics card king" is basically an unattainable target, it doesn't stop everyone from being interested in it.

After all, NVIDIA's "graphics card king" basically represents the pinnacle that consumer graphics cards can achieve at the moment, allowing you to intuitively understand where the ultimate graphics quality of electronic games currently lies. For example, the arrival of the RTX 3090 has ushered in the era of single-card 8K gaming, while the RTX 4090 has integrated path tracing into conventional games.

So the question is, what upgrades does the RTX 5090 have?

As usual, let's first take a look at the exposure table compiled by Videocardz.

Based on the current information, the RTX 5090 graphics card is expected to be equipped with the GB202 GPU core, which is the successor to the AD102 core, offering up to 192 SM units (possibly 24,576 CUDA cores), and the memory bus width can reach up to 512 bits.

In terms of the core, the RTX 5090 is about 50% larger than the RTX 4090. In addition, considering the possibility that the clock frequency of NVIDIA's Blackwell mentioned by the leaker may be faster than Lovelace, it may not be impossible for non-public version graphics cards to reach a clock speed of up to 3GHz.

Based on this, the RTX 5090 will use new GDDR7 memory modules. The theoretical memory speed can be increased from the current 23Gbps to 32Gbps. In addition, with the increase of the 512-bit bus width, the theoretical bandwidth can reach twice that of the RTX 4090.

With this dual approach, the rasterization performance of the RTX 5090 has been improved by 60% compared to the previous generation. In terms of ray tracing, the performance target of the RTX 5090 is to improve by 2.5 times compared to the previous generation, and the computing capability will be doubled, with a peak power consumption possibly reaching 520W.

It seems that the bottom line of the RTX 5090 has been basically exposed.

As long as Nvidia doesn't go too hard, the coup d'état of this "King of Cards" can be considered a foregone conclusion.

Can't afford it, don't need it?

In fact, when you consider how much impact the arrival of the RTX 5090 will have on ordinary consumers—

I think it would be minimal.

First of all, in terms of price, taking into account the prices of the previous generations of "King of Cards," even if we optimistically calculate it at $1,799, the domestic price of the RTX 5090 may exceed ¥15,000, which is not a graphics card worth considering for the vast majority of gamers.

As a comparison, up to now, if you refer to the monthly Steam hardware survey, you will find that not only old entry-level cards like the GTX 1060, and GTX 1650 have been residing in the top three for years, even Intel's Xe integrated graphics and UHD graphics can also be found in the top twenty.

This also indicates that many users don't have such high demands for graphics card performance, and the main focus is on being affordable.

If you want to switch to an RTX 5090, then your processor, motherboard, hard drive, and memory need to keep up; if you want to experience high-definition gaming, you'll need at least a 4K high refresh rate or even an 8K monitor, and the cost of these hardware definitely exceeds the budget of 99% of players.

Instead of the arrival of the RTX 5090, what more people should look forward to is the replacement of the Blackwell architecture, such as the more budget-friendly product lines like the 50/60 series, and what kind of improvements they can bring, or simply put, whether they will continue to stagnate like the RTX 40 series.

Of course, for domestic players, the biggest issue is not really the pricing.

The biggest issue is whether the RTX 5090 card can actually be obtained.

Since the second half of last year, the United States has implemented comprehensive controls on high-performance graphics cards. Even before the ban is lifted, the production and sales of RTX 4090 in the mainland will be restricted, not to mention the rumored RTX 5090 with double the computing power.

Anyway, for most players, high-performance dedicated gaming graphics cards are still available. Whether it's the stagnant performance of these AAA games or the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070Ti Super, it's no problem to meet the gaming needs of most players.

But don't say, whether everyone can afford it or whether this graphics card can come in, the release of the RTX 5090 is always positive.

If it can't come in, then the RTX 4090D will be the top graphics card in the domestic market for a long time to come. In addition to the expected stabilization of product prices, high-end consumers can also choose this graphics card without any worries for a long time without considering any updates.

If it can come in...

Haha, at the pace of releasing a new generation every two years, it's about time for Nvidia to release the "old and yellow" RTX 4090D.

I'm also planning to hop on my bike and grab some secondhand RTX 4090 cards.