Discussion Nvidia Blackwell in Q1-2025

[igor_kavinski]

You guys are not going to believe the review I want to read.

Where they pair the 5090 with the 285K!

 

[gdansk]

A big mistake on this card is that it uses the same manufacturing node as lovelace making blackwell a 5nm product. N4P would have done good for this card(22% power savings or 11% increase in performance).

Nvidia called it '4NP' for Blackwell vs '4N' for Ada.
While Nvidia's process names are questionable I would assume the P indicates they incorporated TSMC process improvements.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I guess you could call my Zotac 4090 cooler open-air since some of the air does go back into the case, but a large portion goes out the back because that's the path of least resistance for the air. I would wager if you did a smoke test, you'd see that most of the air is exhausted out the back of the case.

Well if you count eventually making it's way to the CPU area, and being exhausted out by the Case fan near the CPU, then sure most of it's exhausting out the back of the case.

If you mean out the GPU plate at the back of the case, then NOT a chance.

1) Your Zotac is a 3 fan open air card, so there is no path at all for 2 of the 3 fans to exhaust any air out the back of the GPU. So even all the air that 3 fan was exhausted out the back it would be the minority.

2) Even worse the Fins are the wrong orientation to blow out the back. Blower cards blow through the horizontally aligned fins and out the back, Open air card align the fins vertically and it exits up and down, so even the 3rd fan will put most of its air into the case. Any coming out the back, most likely just skipped over the fins, and is incidental.

OTOH, here is a Zotac 4090 - Even the third fan near back, those vertical fins will push air up and down not out the back. They actively block air from going out the back. Any air leaking out the back is incidental from the edge of the fan, that missed the heatsink fins. You need horizontal fins to push air through the cooler out of the card at the back, and this doesn't have that or do that.

 

[tajoh111]

Nvidia called it '4NP' for Blackwell vs '4N' for Ada.
While Nvidia's process names are questionable I would assume the P indicates they incorporated TSMC process improvements.

Blackwell datacenter is using 4NP. Consumer is still using same 4N as ADA.

 

[Ranulf]

AIB prices look insane and FE cards will be unicorns.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1i7ojvo/rtx_50805090_aib_prices_leaked_via_pc_partpicker

Heh, $2799 for the ROG card.

From that thread:

"ASUS skipping the middleman and scalping themselves. Genius."

The idle power numbers are interesting. It made me check my 2060S, it idles at 14w most of the time, up to 14.83w according to HW Monitor.

HUB with the price/perf numbers. A slight upgrade from the 4090.

 

[SolidQ]

More games 4090 vs 5090 4k

 

[jpiniero]

Blackwell datacenter is using 4NP. Consumer is still using same 4N as ADA.

I suppose you could still hold out some hope that nVidia could do a respin for the Super refresh. The issue appears to be simply power limited with also that the ROPs didn't increase either.

 

[StinkyPinky]

So we waited two years for a 25% 4K perf increase for 25% price increase and a 25% power increase.

And that's only if you pair it with a 9800x3d, literally any other cpu will net you very little gains.

And for this amazing privilege you have to pay over $2k. I haven't been this disappointed since I last saw myself naked in a mirror.

 

[CastleBravo]

So we waited two years for a 25% 4K perf increase for 25% price increase and a 25% power increase.

And that's only if you pair it with a 9800x3d, literally any other cpu will net you very little gains.

And for this amazing privilege you have to pay over $2k. I haven't been this disappointed since I last saw myself naked in a mirror.

And 5090 vs 4090 is going to be the biggest jump in performance for this generation. 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 will be even less impressive. 5070 will probably be a 4070 Super for $50 off MSRP. Hell, it might lose to the 4070 Super.

 

[WelshBloke]

5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 will be even less impressive.

I was trying to work out what the relative performance was going to be for the 5080 compared with the 4080 super (which seems the closest in specs) using the 5090 Vs 4090.
It didn't look like there was a huge improvement on the way but it was a very "back of a beermat" calculation.

 

[Heartbreaker]

And 5090 vs 4090 is going to be the biggest jump in performance for this generation. 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 will be even less impressive. 5070 will probably be a 4070 Super for $50 off MSRP. Hell, it might lose to the 4070 Super.

Yes, 5070 should be quite entertaining vs 4070 Super. I figure it will trade blows, probably a handful of memory BW limited games will tip the edge to the 5070. Memory BW is about the only thing it does much better (other than more Fake Frames).

 

[Elfear]

I was hoping the 5090 would show a better uplift at 8k to maybe/sorta justify the eye-watering price tag. Only test I could find so far with 8k results were from Techradar. Not a true apples to apples since it's DLSS 3 vs 4 and different versions of FG. Kinda disappointing...

38% faster in Cyberpunk (non-FG results)


95% faster in Hogwarts (non-FG results)


23% faster in SW Outlaws (non-FG results)

 

[Golgatha]

Well if you count eventually making it's way to the CPU area, and being exhausted out by the Case fan near the CPU, then sure most of it's exhausting out the back of the case.

If you mean out the GPU plate at the back of the case, then NOT a chance.

1) Your Zotac is a 3 fan open air card, so there is no path at all for 2 of the 3 fans to exhaust any air out the back of the GPU. So even all the air that 3 fan was exhausted out the back it would be the minority.

2) Even worse the Fins are the wrong orientation to blow out the back. Blower cards blow through the horizontally aligned fins and out the back, Open air card align the fins vertically and it exits up and down, so even the 3rd fan will put most of its air into the case. Any coming out the back, most likely just skipped over the fins, and is incidental.

OTOH, here is a Zotac 4090 - Even the third fan near back, those vertical fins will push air up and down not out the back. They actively block air from going out the back. Any air leaking out the back is incidental from the edge of the fan, that missed the heatsink fins. You need horizontal fins to push air through the cooler out of the card at the back, and this doesn't have that or do that.

Ok, you're right and I'm wrong. I stand corrected. Thanks for the post and explanation.

 

[moonbogg]

You guys complain too much. Technology is rare in nature and constitutes a miracle. An enormous army of engineers and manufacturers were led by Jensen to produce this 5090 miracle for you to enjoy playing GAMES on. You reject grateful? At $2200, this card gives you top gaming performance for 4 years. That's $45 per month which is nothing for what Jensen fought to give you. Stupid.

 

[CakeMonster]

Just watched the DF review, seems NV really wanted them to compare native (no upscaling) to MFG 2x, 3x, and 4x, in order to have the latency with MFG look much better than without. Even though MFG obviously presupposes upscaling, which makes it ridiculous to compare them. DF includes the upscaling base resolution also in separate graphs, which IMO doesn't make MFG look that bad IMO, but shows the actual evaluation you will need to do with regards to added latency.

 

[Golgatha]

You guys complain too much. Technology is rare in nature and constitutes a miracle. An enormous army of engineers and manufacturers were led by Jensen to produce this 5090 miracle for you to enjoy playing GAMES on. You reject grateful? At $2200, this card gives you top gaming performance for 4 years. That's $45 per month which is nothing for what Jensen fought to give you. Stupid.

I'd be more grateful if nVidia gave up some of that margin they're enjoying. In the second quarter of fiscal 2025, Nvidia's gross margin was 75%, and that's up from 50% in 2012. Historically the GPUs had higher than 25% generation to generation performance improvement as well. nVidia isn't a charity, but neither am I.

 

[blckgrffn]

You are right, I though the difference was a bit bigger.
Still, I think it is a worse architecture for sure, given the massive difference in bandwidth.

And to your point, massive feature addition (even though at the time it was a hammer in search of nails) came with the 2080Ti. You can use a 2080Ti today and be pretty pleased with hit, relatively speaking.

Blackwell seems to bring almost nothing new that in future might be handy. Except moving the bar sooooo much higher for power consumption, so we can look forward to 600W flagships going forward.

 

[SolidQ]

For real removed or software doesn't know?

https://videocardz.com/pixel/nvidia-has-removed-hot-spot-sensor-data-from-geforce-rtx-50-gpus

 

[igor_kavinski]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition Review

The GeForce RTX 5090 is a 4K gaming beast, but there's more to the story. From DLSS 4 to Neural Rendering, the AI-enhanced future of gaming is here.

www.tweaktown.com

Cheer up, folks! This is the new 4X Fake Frame Path Tracing Champ that stands a good chance of exploding your 1kW PSU and if you are lucky, burning up your power connector. But it burns your house down and you can be sure you are the chosen one!

Spoiler

 

[igor_kavinski]

For real removed or software doesn't know?

https://videocardz.com/pixel/nvidia-has-removed-hot-spot-sensor-data-from-geforce-rtx-50-gpus

Speculation: Probably to deny RMAs when the GPU gets hotspots in excess of 120C for prolonged periods and burns itself out.

 

[igor_kavinski]

More games 4090 vs 5090 4k

From AC: Valhalla to World War Z, some very notable games in there that don't benefit. Maybe 8K can help? Or Jensen needs to bribe these studios for some optimization work.

 

[Meteor Late]

I think the really interesting thing will be 8K ultra performance mode, something tells me that with the new transformer model and with so high final resolution, the result will be very good and 8K gaming will be doable.

 

[blckgrffn]

So, where's the $1500 24GB 384bit part that replaces the 4090 at 450W outright? Seems doable and there is such a gulf from 5080 to the 5090 using the 4080S as a stand in.

I know the gap was there before but the 4080 was $1200 and the 4090 was "$1600"?

Seems like if we are stuck with this for 2 years plenty of folks would want something in the middle? Or not?

 

[Meteor Late]

So, where's the $1500 24GB 384bit part that replaces the 4090 at 450W outright? Seems doable and there is such a gulf from 5080 to the 5090 using the 4080S as a stand in.

I know the gap was there before but the 4080 was $1200 and the 4090 was "$1600"?

Seems like if we are stuck with this for 2 years plenty of folks would want something in the middle? Or not?

The strategy from Nvidia was to kill the xx80 ti class GPU, that happened in 2020 with the introduction of the 90 class with Ampere. They made the RTX 3080 look very good (many cuda cores, 320-bit bus) so that people didn't complain about how expensive RTX 3090 was.
Once people got used to the 90 class GPU, then they silently killed the 80 ti class, and now you will get either a Titan class card or a 80 class GPU with half the core count and a mediocre 256-bit bus, you won't get the sensible card that everyone wants, of course unless AMD forces them to do so. But Lisa Su had other plans of course.
AMD could've made a 550 mm2 card or so that beats the RTX 5080 convincingly, and you would have your RTX 5080 ti or at least a supercharged RTX 5080 super.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Seems like if we are stuck with this for 2 years plenty of folks would want something in the middle? Or not?

Jensen should release the 4090 Ti FE with the same cooling solution as the 5090 FE. Problem solved.