NVIDIA signs the most powerful "consumer" graphics card ever conceived, but at almost 2,500 euros, can we still call it consumer?
Promises made, promises kept. During the last CES in Las Vegas, NVIDIA revealed its new generation of graphics cards - the famous Blackwells - and also specified the release schedule for the various models. The GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 won't be available until Thursday of next week. On the other hand, as NVIDIA had announced, the embargo on testing Founders Edition models - those manufactured in-house by NVIDIA - has been lifted. In fact, all the journalists who had been able to benefit from a shipment from NVIDIA were able to publish their articles on what promises to be a real power monster, but also a financial and energy drain. Indeed, without a power supply of at least 1000 watts, there's no point in even thinking of plugging in an RTX 5090, and without a well-stocked wallet...either. The Founders Edition model is priced at 2,349 euros, but as with every generation, chances are it'll be hard to find, and you'll have to fall back on partner models priced at 2,500, 2,800 or even more than 3,000 euros.
It's not our vocation to relay all the tests published around the world, but here are a few interesting French articles to consult:
- the Clubic test, which gives it a score of 9/10,
- the Les Numériques test, which gives it a maximum rating of 5 stars,
- the Cowcotland test, also five stars and a "coup de cœur",
- finally, the Hardware & Co test doesn't give a rating, but a spider's web graph comparing the RTX 5090 with the GeForce RTX 4090 and Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
VideoCardz gives an idea of the RTX 5090's performance © VideoCardz
Without going into too much detail, we can draw several conclusions from these tests. First of all, the GeForce RTX 5090 is indeed the most powerful graphics card available today, but the increase in power over the previous generation is slowing down. This is the reason why NVIDIA develops so much software: where transistors are no longer enough, artificial intelligence is called in to the rescue. DLSS 4 does wonders in this respect, with a multi-frame generation that boosts animation speed to incredible proportions while improving visual quality. The result is grandiose, but still only concerns a tiny handful of games. And let's not forget that without DLSS 4, the performance per watt is not as good as on the GeForce RTX 4090. Finally, the question of value for money or performance per euro remains. Is it reasonable to spend four or five times the price of a console to play on your PC? Only you can decide.
