The NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition:
Architecture :
As a reminder, the cards in the “Founders Edition” series are unique models offered by NVIDIA. The main advantage of these cards is that they are offered at a “locked-in” price, which will not change in the coming weeks or months, unless the price goes down. NVIDIA‘s partners will also be offering their own models. Visually, NVIDIA has radically changed its design, moving to a 2-slot wide card that will be SFF-Ready. We’ll be coming back to this new design in more details later in this article.
This NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition benefits from the Blackwell architecture and retains a 4 nanometre engraving finesse, but switches to the TSMC N4P process, enabling greater transistor density and improved energy efficiency. This architecture features new 5th generation Tensor Cores and 4th generation Ray Tracing Cores. The 5th generation Tensor Cores will provide support for the FP4 (Floating Point 4 bits) format, which will double the computational performance of neural models while halving the memory footprint. We’ll be coming back to this development during our tests, in particular with the UL Procyon software that we’ve been using for several weeks now.
Of course, DLSS 4 support cannot be overlooked. This new NVIDIA RTX 5090 is NVIDIA’s new flagship, with 92 billion transistors and 21,760 CUDA Cores.
There’s something new on the memory front too, with 32GB of GDDR7 memory offering a 78% increase in bandwidth over the previous generation. This is where we need to remember that this NVIDIA RTX 5090 is also a card aimed at professionals. GDDR7 memory will have a visible impact in professional applications, such as video editing or 3D simulation.
As for the TDP, it is announced at 575 watts, which makes the design of this Founders Edition model even more ‘disturbing’. But let’s get on with discovering NVIDIA’s new packaging!
The Founders Edition bundle :
The first thing that strikes you is the size of the box, which is more imposing in terms of dimensions when compared to previous generation cards. Despite this, NVIDIA says it has halved the packaging of this NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition compared to the ADA Lovelace cards, because there’s a little surprise. As with the previous generation, the card arrives in a cardboard box, but here, this cardboard box is actually the packaging for our RTX 5090 FE, whereas with the RTX 4000s, the cardboard box was only a protection before we discovered the ‘real box’ of the graphics card (click here to remember).
Ecologically, the first good point for the Greens, and you’ll see that this isn’t the only effort made, since there’s no plastic and the whole thing is made from paper fibres. The cardboard tab that seals the box reveals the following annotation: ” Inspired by Gamers. Enhanced by AI. Built by NVIDIA “. It says it all: gamers, artificial intelligence and NVIDIA.
So what does this new box have in store for us? As usual, NVIDIA has taken great care with the packaging, offering a cardboard box in which to hide our copy of the NVIDIA RTX 5090 FE. It’s always very exciting to discover the new packaging offered by NVIDIA for the arrival of a new generation. The box opens from the front and conceals a second cardboard box in the centre, with the words “GeForce RTX 5090” engraved on the top.
When this is removed, a small box is revealed, containing the card’s power adapter and a quick-start guide. Note that the adapter is a 4 x PCIe 8-pin model to be compatible with your power supply, if you don’t have the 12V-2×6 connector. NVIDIA recommends a minimum power supply of 1,000 watts.
To access and discover our NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition, all you have to do is slide out the top and bottom cardboard boxes, which hold the two sides of the box together. NVIDIA is therefore playing the eco-responsible card with the packaging of this Founders Edition, and we can only agree!
NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition:
The card is 304 mm long, 137 mm high and 2 slots (40 mm) thick, which means it can be labelled SFF-Ready. This means it can be inserted into a case compatible with the Small Form Factor for anyone who decides to design a compact configuration.
During the press presentation, NVIDIA went back over its new cooling system, which allows our NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition to be only two slots thick while still being able to dissipate 575 watts, which is, let’s face it, a technical feat. There are two 115 mm fans that draw in cool air from the bottom of your case, which is then evacuated by the fans at the top.
As we already hinted at in this brief, the internal design is made up of three elements: the PCB with the graphics chip, memory chips and power stages, a PCB with the PCIe Gen5 connector and finally a PCB in charge of the video ports linked by a flex cable to the central PCB. Our colleagues at PCGamesN were able to get their hands on this PCB.
NVIDIA also took the opportunity to look back at the first generations of Founders Edition cards to show how the cooling system has evolved. And so we come to our RTX 5090 Founders Edition, which benefits from what we call dual-flow cooling. The two fans blow the air directly through the heatsink.
What’s important to understand is that the two fans blow on the heatsink through which the heat pipes pass, heat pipes which are inserted into the steam chamber responsible for dissipating the heat from the central PCB components. It’s not possible to see this in our photos, but as der8auer noticed, the fins of the heatsink gradually curve to optimise the airflow. As for the thermal paste, it has been replaced by liquid metal, which offers better heat exchange and saves a few degrees compared to traditional thermal paste. This new cooling system has therefore been completely redesigned and must have required many hours of testing.
Finally, to power the card, there is a single 12V-2×6 connector, but you can use the 4 x PCIe 8-pin adapter supplied in the bundle by NVIDIA. Note that its position has changed compared to the previous generation. Aesthetically, it will be more difficult to hide the power cable. As for video connectors, you’ll get three DisplayPort 2.1b with UHBR20 and one HDMI 2.1b. NVIDIA has even gone so far as to offer a bracket in matt grey, rather than metallic.
