Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090: Flagship GB202 GPU to feature 512-bit wide bus

There have been conflicting rumours about Nvidia's next-gen RTX 50 series Blackwell graphics cards. Initially, Kopite7kimi, a well-known Nvidia insider, stated the flagship GPU (GB202) would come with a 512-bit wide bus. Subsequent reports revised that to 384-bit, like the GeForce RTX 4090. Now, the same leaker stands by their original information.

If the above information is accurate, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (tentative) could feature up to 32 GB of VRAM with its 512-bit wide bus. Its GB202 GPU will use a monolithic die, quashing rumours about it following AMD's MCM design. That said, Nvidia still plans to use chiplets for its GB100 datacentre GPU.

Kopite7kimi adds that the GB203 GPU powering the likely GeForce RTX 5080 could be half as small as the GB202. This will potentially result in a massive performance gap between the RTX xx90 and xx80 SKUs. It might not be as much as Nvidia is unlikely to use the whole GB202 die for the GeForce RTX 5090.

RedGamingTech revealed earlier the GeForce RTX 5090 would pack 192 SMs (Stream Multiprocessors). CUDA core count is difficult to ascertain at the moment as they're slated for a redesign. GDDR7 memory is also on the cards but many argue they'd be overkill for consumer graphics cards. Nevertheless, the generation-over-generation improvement from Ada Lovelace to Blackwell is slated to be 2.6x. Nvidia could easily get away with a lot less, especially with no high-end RDNA 4 GPUs to worry about.