2160p gaming rasterization performance:
Let’s get on with the gaming tests. We’ve used all the graphics cards we felt would be interesting to compare with this ROG Astral LC RTX 5090 in 2160p definition. In the coming weeks, we’ll be offering a new type of article, retesting graphics cards from previous generations to find out what they’re still worth in 2025. Our games panel currently consists of 11 titles, and will be expanded in the coming weeks.
We have chosen to use the built-in benchmarks of these games.
Why do we do this? Quite simply to enable you to compare your results with ours if you also own a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought-provoking idea, and one that will enable you to compare your results with ours. The number and titles selected have changed slightly, and will increase again in the coming weeks as we get our hands on new games.
What is rasterization?
A quick word about “rasterization”, which is currently the subject of much discussion. Rasterization is the evaluation of the performance of our graphics cards without the use of upscaling technologies . We choose a graphics quality, often the highest, and test it. The advantage of these tests is that we can quantify the gains made by the architecture between different generations. In our case, this means being able to judge the gains obtained between the architecture of the RTX 4090 (ADA Lovelace) and that of the new RTX 5090 (Blackwell).
Borderlands 3 :
Let’s get down to business with Borderlands 3. It’s a direct hit, with an average of 192.3 FPS, a 45.1% gain over the RTX 4090.
Cyberpunk 2077:
New game and same observation with Cyberpunk 2077. The 100 FPS mark is easily passed, with an average of 115 FPS.
COD Modern Warfare III:
You can’t change a winning team, and our sample of the day is still well ahead. Once again, the gap between us and the RTX 4090 is colossal, with the latter only in third place in this benchmark.
Forspoken:
Forspoken is a fairly demanding game, and the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 are the only two cards capable of breaking the 140 FPS barrier.
Horizon Zeron Dawn Remastered:
One of the new games we’ve added to our comparison, where the differences are smaller than usual. Here, there’s a 21.9% gain over the RTX 4090.
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider:
Under Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, the 250 FPS mark is easily passed by our ROG Astral LC RTX 5090.
Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool :
This new game, too, seems greedy and doesn’t feature NVIDIA graphics cards.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 performance remains unchanged, with the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 at the top.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
Here, performance is less important, but still first place for the RTX 5090.
Red Dead Redemption II:
Under Red Dead Redemption II, nothing changes, and our ROG Astral LC RTX 5090 is well ahead with an average of 157.6 FPS.
F1 2024 :
Last game and nothing will have changed during this series of 11 games, with an RTX 5090 logically dominating the older generation. Let’s calculate the average gains to get an idea of the difference between the two architectures.
Average of games in 2160p rasterization :
Let’s start with a logical observation: yes, our RTX 5090 logically performs better than the RTX 4090, and we’re averaging a 32.5% gain over the previous architecture. There are two ways of looking at this: either you can say that almost 33% isn’t bad at all, or you can say that it’s not enough, given the gains, for example, that we noted between ADA Lovelace and Ampere. Well, yes, but… Don’t lose sight of the fact that between ADA Lovelace and Ampere, etching finesse improved (8 nm to 4 nm), the number of Cuda Cores was increased, Tensor Cores and RT Cores evolved and increased in number, and it benefited from a much higher boost frequency.
Here, we’re on an identical etch finesse, which explains the lower gain, and unless the etch finesse changes for the next architecture, we should find ourselves in the same gain proportions. Is this a bad thing? Not really, and it would have been difficult to propose a greater gain in rasterization in this situation, given that the TDP is already 600 watts. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how the rest of the RTX 5000 range fares against the previous generation.
NVIDIA has been working on AI for years, notably with its upscaling, and continues to develop it, as we’ll see in the rest of our tests.