Just recently, Blackwell made news through the HPC series, where we learned that the GB100 could exploit an MCM design. This time, the focus is on the consumer sector, with the GeForce series. Panzerlied tried to imagine what the future RTX 5090 would be like, and it looks pretty huge!
RTX 5090, specifications by the ladleful!
Of course, no exact figures were given, only percentages compared with the current RTX 4090. In terms of number of cores, the card would then have 50% more cores than the current 4090. This would translate into a total of 192 SM and around 24,000 Cuda cores. In terms of frequency, he indicates that this could be 15% higher. Again, we don’t know which frequency he’s talking about: boost or base. But assuming it’s the boost frequency, it could be as high as 2.9 GHz.
As for memory, Panzerlied mentions a 52% improvement in memory bandwidth. Based purely on VRAM speed, this would give us a frequency of 32 Gbps, based on the RTX 4090’s specifications. When calculating bandwidth, we must also take into account the width of the memory bus. In this respect, the card could well use the 384-bit memory of the 4090, in which case it will need faster VRAM, potentially GDDR7. Alternatively, a wider, 448-bit bus wouldn’t be out of the question, in which case 28 Gbps VRAM could be used. And with a wider bus, the amount of memory would also increase: 32 GB. Finally, we learn that the L2 cache would increase by 78% to 128 MB.
What we can’t find out, however, is the card’s footprint, heat and power consumption. In recent times, NVIDIA cards have become increasingly imposing, while consuming, in absolute terms, a great deal of power. But it’s likely that we’re dealing with a power-hungry model!
Finally, Panzerlied estimates a 70% performance improvement. In itself, this is hardly surprising, given that for several generations now, NVIDIA has been offering ultra-high-end performance on steroids. The latter then offers insane scores compared with the previous generation. Be that as it may, we’ll have to be patient before we see such a monster on the market. Indeed, Blackwell is not due out any time soon, as this generation is scheduled for release in 2025. In the meantime, we have time to see a refresh of the RTX 40.
