GeForce RTX 50 Series, Unveiled: Nvidia's New Graphics Cards Promise Massive AI Gains

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During its CES 2025 keynote, Nvidia gave us our first honest look at its upcoming GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. Though these new GPUs, based on Nvidia’s cutting-edge "Blackwell" architecture, were highly anticipated, the extent to which these new GPUs surpass their predecessors, at least on paper, is still impressive. For example: The GeForce RTX 5070, at $549, will reportedly be able to match the performance of the company’s older GeForce RTX 4090, which launched at $1,599, marking an astonishing leap forward in performance if it pans out in testing.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX Blackwell Launch Lineup

For starters, Nvidia told us that at least four new graphics chips are due in the next few months: the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, the GeForce RTX 5080, the RTX 5070 Ti, and the RTX 5070. At launch, Nvidia has not indicated that it will release an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 or Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, but those levels of card are typical, too, so we’ll very likely see one or both of those graphics cards later.

At the CES keynote, we didn’t get info on fixed shader counts, or any traditional performance numbers (like frame rates), for any of these graphics cards. Instead, Nvidia focused on AI performance and provided some speed info for that metric. The GeForce RTX 5090, which is the fastest model and will feature GDDR7 memory, can reportedly process 3,352 AI TOPS (trillion operations per second) and will contain 92 billion transistors, making it possibly the largest single chip in terms of transistor count ever produced. We don’t know the transistor count for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, but its AI processing power is rated at 1,801 TOPS.

This suggests that the RTX 5080 likely has roughly 50% of the resources of the RTX 5090, marking a steep step down. The price of these two GPUs also supports this, as the RTX 5090 is priced at $1,999, while the RTX 5080 is priced at $999.

The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which costs $749, reportedly can process 1,406 AI TOPs. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, at $549, has the power to handle 988 AI TOPS.

Blackwell Conjures Up Nvidia DLSS 4 & AI Processing

The prices Nvidia set on its new GPUs weren’t all that surprising, as they fall roughly in line with those set by Nvidia on its current GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs. Far more startling was Nvidia’s claim that its new GeForce RTX 5070 would be able to match the RTX 4090 in gaming performance. This is shocking not only because the RTX 4090 is currently the world’s fastest single graphics chip, but also due to the significant price difference between the two, with the RTX 4090 having an MSRP of $1,599 and frequently selling for more than that.

A close look at the rest of Nvidia’s keynote gives us some insights into how this is possible, and it’s all down to AI. The AI hardware on these new GPUs is cutting-edge and pushed to provide far greater performance than previous generations could handle.

“Blackwell, the engine of AI, has arrived for PC gamers, developers, and creatives,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. “Fusing AI-driven neural rendering and ray tracing, Blackwell is the most significant computer graphics innovation since we introduced programmable shading 25 years ago.”

During the keynote, Huang stated that for one of its demonstrations, the GPU only had to render 2 million pixels in a scene that contained 33 million pixels, with all of the remaining pixels generated by AI. Two key technologies make this possible. One is Nvidia’s new DLSS 4 technology, which takes frame generation to a new level by generating more frames based on fewer pixels. It also utilizes ray reconstruction and super-resolution models to do this with greater image fidelity than previous generations of DLSS.

Nvidia also introduced a technology called RTX Neural Shaders, which similarly helps generate higher-quality images such as 3D character models. By taking advantage of these technologies and the powerful AI hardware, this is likely how the RTX 5070 can match the RTX 4090 in games. However, at the same time, it’s likely that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 won’t be able to match the RTX 4090 in games that don’t support DLSS, which makes support for this feature critically important.

The RTX 50 Series: Shipping Soon

If you’re eager to get your hands on one of Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPUs, you won’t have to wait much longer. The high-end RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will be available on January 30, with the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 to follow in February.

Nvidia will also have mobile versions of these graphics chips coming just slightly later in March. The mobile versions of these chips are listed as having less overall AI performance, likely because their power consumption and clocks were reduced to work better inside a mobile platform.

Laptops with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 will start at $2,899, while systems with an RTX 5080 will start at $2,199. Notebooks equipped with the RTX 5070 Ti are priced at $1,599, and PCs with the RTX 5070 are comparatively affordable, starting at $1,299.

But, of course, if you want the utmost power, that will reside in Nvidia's two-grand desktop GPU behemoth, the GeForce RTX 5090. Stay tuned for our full review of the new lineup in the coming weeks.