Has NVIDIA selected its RTX 5090s sent to the press?

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Via ITHome, we learn that there are suspicions that the RTX 5090 Founders Edition cards sent to the press have been hand-picked. The aim of the manoeuvre: to send out higher-performance cards to give the card a better image with consumers. It has to be said that this is also something that was suspected by our Discord community. However, the chameleon denies these rumors.

RTX 5090 Founders Edition: sorted cards for testing?

RTX 5090 FE

Obviously, these rumors stem from the markings left on certain cards, implying that the models in question have been carefully selected for testing. On the one hand, this would hardly be surprising, especially when we look at the results of some of our colleagues. Indeed, at HotHardware in particular, the Founders Edition, in some cases, seriously lags behind highly customized versions such as a Suprim Liquid. In others, it’s even ahead. It should be pointed out that the Suprim Liquid is cooled by an AIO, and is a high-end, factory-overclocked version, while the Founders Edition runs at reference frequencies, i.e. 2407 MHz versus 2512 MHz for the Suprim Liquid.

Now, we must also take into account the protocols and the way in which the readings are taken. Test conditions, scene reproducibility, OS “cleanliness”, driver versions, vbios, and so on. All these elements can influence benchmark results. A slight variation in one of these parameters and you end up with a modified hierarchy.

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For its part, NVIDIA defends itself against any accusations to Tom’s Hardware, pointing out that this is a question of marking linked to use, and that the functionalities and performance are exactly the same as the cards on the market. The aim of the maneuver was to ensure that testers received their copies in time to publish their tests. According to the company, no binned GPUs were sent to the media. As for CornerJack, who was behind the card test, he didn’t feel the same way about the hardware supplied by the Greens. In his opinion, the hardware is legit.

In any case, the cards will go on sale soon, and the official retail price of €2,349 may not be respected for much longer… Except perhaps on NVIDIA’s store.


Read our review of the Founders Edition here!