Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 vs. RTX 3090

Since the launch of GeForce RTX 3090, the expectations we place on our graphics cards have changed dramatically. Powerful as the Ampere flagship remains, it’s difficult not to feel left out by all this talk of frame generation among RTX 40 and now 50 Series cards. If you’re considering the jump to RTX 5090, here’s one showdown you won’t want to miss.

Flashy as DLSS 4 is, particularly its promises of performance multiplication through MFG (Muti Frame Generation), GeForce RTX 5090 does have plenty more to offer to would-be buyers. In fact, it may just surprise you how much of an upgrade it can be versus RTX 3090.

Specs

RTX 5090 might be a modest uptick over RTX 4090 in the rasterisation stakes, but comparing specifications across two or more generations is eye opening. Anyone considering making the move from RTX 3090 will feel a serious injection of speed, and then some.

For starters, the monster GB202 Blackwell die is only 18% larger than GA102 Ampere, but can afford a staggering 226% increase in transistors courtesy of a leading TSMC 4nm manufacturing process.

Putting 92.2 billion transistors to good use, RTX 5090 carries just over double the CUDA cores of its 2020 namesake. Boost clock soars to 2,407MHz, too, resulting in a near 3x increase in teraflops.

Add to that much faster GDDR7 memory, a wider 512-bit bus and oodles of bandwidth, and you have core RTX 5090 specifications that represent a monumental leap from 2020’s RTX 3090.

Bolstering that feel of major progression is a Blackwell architecture that introduces 4th Gen RT cores, 5th Gen Tensor, and transformative performance enhancements such as multi frame generation. Read more on that by clicking here.

Performance

Both GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 3090 have proven their mettle in the Club386 test bench, complete with a 7950X3D that provides ample room for each graphics card to show their stuff. These scores and frame rates are as fresh as they come, using the latest available drivers for each at the time of writing.

Our 7950X3D Test PCs

Club386 carefully chooses each component in a test bench to best suit the review at hand. When you view our benchmarks, you’re not just getting an opinion, but the results of rigorous testing carried out using hardware we trust.

Shop Club386 test platform components:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Motherboard: MSI MEG X670E ACE
Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 A-RGB
Memory: 64GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5
Storage: 2TB WD_Black SN850X NVMe SSD
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1,300W
Chassis: Fractal Design Torrent Grey

Build Log

How We Test

In addition to a robust helping of synthetic tests, the Club386 benchmark suite below also includes gaming performance at FHD (1080p), QHD (1440p), and UHD (2160p). I’ll also be examining how much of a difference DLSS 4 makes in one of the most demanding ray traced workloads on the market today.

Application & AI

GeForce RTX 3090 was a beast for 3D rendering when it first hit the scene but now its successor almost triples the amount of samples it can handle per minute. This undoubtedly in part due to its more-powerful GPU but also its memory configuration, offering almost double the bandwidth and a 33% larger buffer.

Theoretical AI TOPs between GeForce RTX 5090 and 3090 are enormous but this only translates into a 70% boost in Geekbench AI.

For those regularly running local LLMs, GeForce RTX 5090 will provide a substantial boost in performance. Running Llama 3.1, Blackwell finds itself 84% ahead of Lovelace.

Gaming

As one should expect from four-and-a-half-years of progress, GeForce RTX 5090 rasterised and ray traced results are in a league of their own next to RTX 3090’s. Blackwell enjoys an enormous lead of 161% in 3DMark Speed Way over Lovelace but goes further still in 3DMark Steel Nomad with a 173% uplift.

Note that the staggering gaps observed in these synthetic benchmarks aren’t wholly indicative of performance differences in all games. However, they provide a general yardstick for just how much faster Nvidia’s new flagship can be with enough room to flex its might.

Frame rates in Assassin’s Creed Mirage across the three major resolutions set the stage for a trend that repeats itself throughout the suite, namely that GeForce RTX 5090 performs best relative to RTX 3090 the higher the resolution. Generational gains are suitably large at FHD but aren’t as impressive as those seen at QHD and UHD by comparison.

At FHD, GeForce RTX 5090 leads RTX 3090 by 69%, growing to 83% at QHD and further still to 97% at UHD. Blackwell’s performance is all the more impressive considering it remarkably offers more frames than its ancestor while also driving four times as many pixels.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail narrows the gap between GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 3090 at FHD (+41%) and QHD (+78%) compared to Assassin’s Creed Mirage. However, the former graphics card outright laps the latter and then some at UHD with gains of 111%.

Despite the additional horsepower GeForce RTX 5090 has at its disposal, its minimum frame rates can’t push above 110-113fps. This is most likely an issue with the game than either graphics card, as RTX 3090 similarly tops out at 114fps.

It’s time to rev up those RT cores as GeForce RTX 5090 and 3090 race one another in Forza Motorsport. However, you needn’t hold your breath for a photo finish as Blackwell’s ray tracing capabilities pretty much always laps those of Lovelace.

At QHD and UHD, GeForce RTX 5090 delivers average frame rates that are more than double 3090 with respective uplifts of 133% and 156%. The pixel pusher can’t quite manage the same feat at FHD with a 96% lead but it’s so close that you might as consider it another lap. Once again, the new flagship’s UHD performance is similar and even slightly better than that of its forebear at FHD.

GeForce RTX 3090 provides ample performance in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, throwing down an intimidating gauntlet with triple-digit frame rates across all three resolutions. This doesn’t stop RTX 5090 from delivering a sizeable uplift in fps, though, far from it. Instead, the graphics card charges forward with gains of 60-139%.

Rainbow Six Extraction delivers something of a brick wall for GeForce RTX 5090. Average frame rates at FHD and QHD are within 3fps of one another, creating a gap of 16-63% relative to RTX 3090 at the same resolutions.

There’s no contest at UHD, of course. GeForce RTX 5090 more than doubles RTX 3090 with an average frame rate of 248fps. If you demand more frames in combination with more pixels in your first-person shooters, Blackwell’s your best bet.

DLSS

Path tracing is the future of rendering, abandoning the hybrid approach of ray tracing and rasterization and going full whack with rays everywhere. Nvidia’s of the opinion that we can realise this promised land all the better through artificial intelligence rather than brute force. I largely agree with the company’s position but that doesn’t mean now-current generation cards aren’t capable of remarkable feats through the merits of their silicon alone. Enter Cyberpunk 2077’s ‘RT Overdrive’ preset, one of if not the ultimate proving ground for GPUs.

Several years ago, as GeForce RTX 3090 demonstrates, running this workload natively beyond 60fps was impossible topping out 44fps at FHD and delivering subpar frame rates at QHD and FHD. Swapping to RTX 5090 nets literal game-changing gains ranging between 136-175% with the larger uplifts once again occurring at 4K.

Enabling DLSS Super Resolution brings some reprieve to GeForce RTX 3090, pushing north of 60fps at FHD and 30fps at QHD but UHD remains off the cards. Of course, RTX 5090 also benefits in kind offering triple-digit frame rates at the lower two resolutions and pushing beyond the 60fps barrier in the most-demanding of the three.

Put it another way, GeForce RTX 5090 is 133-237% faster than RTX 3090 here. The relationship between its predecessor’s FHD performance and its own UHD frame rates returns once again, delivering identical fps despite the weight of a 4x larger pixel count bearing down on it.

It’s a whole different ball game once frame generation enters the picture, as GeForce RTX 5090 deploys its MFG tech. Sadly, RTX 3090 can’t continue riding on the DLSS train if it hopes to enjoy some form of frame generation and must instead rely on FSR 3. While this does help the older graphics card keep pace it does diminish its relative image quality owing to the differences between AMD and Nvidia’s upscalers.

It’s staggering just how far ahead GeForce RTX 5090 gets with MFG, besting RTX 3090 by 99-344%. This is to say nothing of the superior latency the former offers as its base frame rates are much higher than the latter.

Vitals

There are 8°C separating GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition from our Gigabyte RTX 3090. Neither temperature should be cause for alarm but it truly is impressive at how Nvidia’s cooler manages to tame a much larger power draw while maintaining a petite form factor.

Even the most sensitive ears will find it to tell these graphics cards apart from one another, with not even a whole decibel splitting the difference. Running at around 40db, neither should drown out the sound of your system’s fans.

Satiating GeForce RTX 5090 requires substantially more wattage, 40% to be exact. This could prompt a power supply upgrade for some and will almost certainly have a knock on effect for your energy bill depending on how often you run it at full whack. Thankfully, idle power consumption remains modest at an additional 9W over RTX 3090.

Conclusion

If you’re considering making the switch to GeForce RTX 5090 from RTX 3090, you can expect an enormous uplift in gaming performance that will be most apparent at UHD. The new flagship is also markedly better for creative workloads that involve 3D modelling and AI. This, of course, is providing you’re comfortable with its $2,000 price point.

Considering GeForce RTX 5080 is launching on the same day as RTX 5090, the smarter move may be waiting to see how the former stacks up against the latter. Cut from the same cloth as its bigger Blackwell brother, it will undoubtedly outperform RTX 3090 with or without DLSS 4 and draw a similar amount of power thanks to its 360W TBP.

Of course, the arrival of GeForce RTX 5090 should drive down the prices of what little RTX 4090 stock remains on the market. Should you find the outgoing king of the hill is more palatable to your budget then you’ll want to act fast.

GeForce RTX 5090

“GeForce RTX 5090 is the absolute pinnacle of PC gaming. If you can afford it, just go right ahead and buy one.” Read our review.

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