Update | RTX 5090 vs RTX 4090: Questionable RTX 5090 rasterization performance surfaces alongside notable ray tracing gain
January 10, 2025 18:45 GMT update: We failed to mention in the original story that the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme scores of the RTX 4090 used for comparison here are from the 3DMark Hall of Fame. As such, the scores are of overclocked RTX 4090 GPUs. The stock RTX 4090 earns around 19,000 points in the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, making the RTX 5090 with 24,000 points around 26% faster.
That said, 26% faster rasterization performance for 25% more money is not a good look. So, the conclusions drawn here should still apply. The original story continues below.
The RTX 4090 was the most powerful consumer desktop GPU in the RTX 40 lineup. Since AMD had no answer for the RTX 4090, as the RX 7900 XTX was an RTX 4080 competitor, Nvidia reigned supreme in the flagship gaming department. Team Green is set to retain this crown with the RTX 5090 for another generation, as AMD has decided against competing in the high-end/flagship space with RDNA 4.
The question now becomes: How fast is the RTX 5090 compared to the RTX 4090? Well, Nvidia did provide some RTX 5090 performance numbers, but the company didn’t substantial details about the pure rasterization and ray tracing capability of the GPU. Instead, Nvidia focused heavily on DLSS 4 and its 4x Frame Generation.
Thankfully, as the RTX 5090 is possibly already in reviewers' hands, we are starting to get synthetic benchmark results. Two such results have put the RTX 5090 ahead of the RTX 4090 in both rasterization and ray tracing.
RTX 5090 vs RTX 4090
According to the information posted on a now-doomed Chiphell thread, the RTX 5090 scores more than 24,000 and 13,500 points in the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme and Speed Way tests, respectively.
Talking first about the Time Spy Extreme score, the RTX 4090 Time Spy Extreme scores from the 3DMark Hall of Fame database fall between ~22,800 and 23,300. Based on a score of 22,800 for the RTX 4090 and 24,000 for the RTX 5090, the Blackwell GPU appears 5.3% faster than its predecessor. Of course, the result will be different if calculated with higher scores. But, for the sake of argument, we can assume a lower score for both the RTX 5090 and the RTX 4090.
Moving on to the 3DMark Speed Way test, a ray tracing benchmark, the RTX 5090’s reported score of 13,500+ puts the GPU 8% ahead of the fastest RTX 4090 in the 3DMark database. Once again, since the RTX 4090 scores anywhere from ~11,430 to 12,489, the performance delta will increase substantially in favor of the RTX 5090 if we calculate using the lower RTX 4090 scores. For instance, using the 11,430 Speed Way score for the RTX 4090, the RTX 5090’s result is 18% better.
So, it is safe to say that the RTX 5090 could bring a close to 20% ray tracing improvement vs the RTX 4090.
All in all, if the pure rasterization performance of the RTX 5090 is less than 10% faster than the RTX 4090 as discussed above, it will undoubtedly put the $400 price increase in question. This small rasterization improvement would also explain why Nvidia leaned so heavily into DLSS 4 during the RTX 50 unveiling.
That said, we have to reserve judgments until third-party RTX 5090 reviews drop. Till then, take all RTX 5090 performance rumors with a giant grain of salt.
