Nvidia has announced its latest generation of Geforce RTX graphics cards, based on its Blackwell architecture of GPUs. The RTX 50 series is launching at the end of January, with four tiers of cards announced at the event. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also announced other additions to the company’s products like Geforce NOW coming to Steam Deck, Nvidia Broadcast app updates, and more during the presentation.
You can check out our high-level breakdown of Nvidia’s CES announcements, but if you’re here just to know how each new GPU stacks up, keep on reading.
The RTX 50 series is based on the Blackwell architecture, ninth-generation NVENC encoders, fifth-generation Tensor cores, and fourth-generation ray-traced cores. Nvidia announced 4 graphics cards at the event: RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070.
Nvidia’s highest-tier consumer-level graphics card is the RTX 5090, which is claimed to be twice as fast in AI-enhanced gaming performance as the RTX 4090. With 3352 AI TOPS and 21760 CUDA cores, the RTX 5090 is a formidable GPU, sipping up 575W of total graphics power. That’s what packing 92 billion transistors performing over 3342 trillion AI operations per second will do.
The RTX 5070, the lowest-tier card announced at CES, has 988 AI TOPS and 6144 CUDA cores. Compared to the previous generation RTX 4070, the 5070 has more than twice the TOPS, resulting in much faster performance in AI applications.
“Blackwell, the AI engine, is here for PC gamers, developers and creatives,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “By fusing AI-powered neural rendering and ray tracing, Blackwell is the biggest innovation in PC graphics since we brought programmable shading 25 years ago. “
Here are the costs and windows of the announced RTX graphics cards:
The Geforce RTX 50 series uses a new model of DLSS upscaling and super resolution to achieve improved performance compared to the previous generation. This is because DLSS 4 uses what Nvidia calls Multi Frame Generation, which “generates up to three additional frames per traditionally rendered frame”.
Multi-frame generation via DLSS 4 will be exclusive to Blackwell’s family of graphics cards; general improvements will be made to DLSS features for existing cards. This is because the new DLSS functions are based on a transformer-based model, which replaces the convolutional neural network model. DLSS 4 is said to be “40% faster” and employs “30% less VRAM. “
A total of 75 games have been shown in DLSS, four at launch, with more on the way. Nvidia also announced Reflex 2, an enhanced edition of its latency relief technology. Reflex 2 uses “Frame Warp technology” to reduce latency by up to 75%. The feature film will debut in The Finals and Valorant.
A new Nvidia app update will let RTX 50 GPU owners force games to use the latest DLSS model using Multi Frame Generation even if the game officially isn’t supported. This will be available following the release of a new GeForce Game Ready Driver, which will arrive alongside the RTX 5090’s launch.
Owners of previous generation Nvidia RTX four0 GPUs can also use the replacement feature, but will not be able to use DLSS four multi-frame rendering. Nvidia has shown that upcoming games like Doom: The Dark Ages and Avowed will feature four Multi Frame Generation DLSS at launch.
At CES, AMD also announced its new Ryzen Z2 processors for the Lenovo Legion Go, while Acer unveiled the Nitro Blaze 8 and 11 handheld devices. Atari will also introduce a new handheld console called Gamestation Go at the convention.
Rahul is an Indian editor and filmmaker who has lately been navigating the entertainment industry in Mumbai. With a willing interest in film, video games, and the generation that powers them, Rahul got his start in global entertainment policy at TechQuila and IGN India. He has also worked on some screens and videos that you may or may not have heard of; prefers compulsive gambling sessions. His favorite games include The Witcher 3 (what an original) and the Assassin’s Creed games of yesteryear, and he’s doing his best to get into more Nintendo games. At GLHF, Rahul’s comments appeared in a variety of publications, including Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, Parade, and IndiaTimes. When he’s not blogging about pop culture, you can find him regularly doing the same thing in bite-sized chunks on X/Twitter, or any popular platform of the moment.
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