Although there have been many leaks, rumors and reports surrounding Nvidia’s upcoming flagship RTX5090 and the 5080 graphics cards, we now have some final specs thanks to a recent and massive leak.
Well-known and reliable Nvidia leaker kopite7kimi posted on the specs of their X account (formerly known as Twitter) for the coming period Blackwell graphics cards.
According to said leaks, the RTX 5090 will likely use the GB202-300 GPU with 21,760 FP32 CUDA cores (down from the entire chip’s 24,576), a 512-bit memory bus, 32 GB of GDDR7 RAM, and a whopping 600 W use of power. It apparently still uses a dual-slot cooler, despite the power output increasing from the 450 to the 4090’s 600, most likely indicating a differently designed cooling system.
Meanwhile, the RTX 5080 is rumored to use the GB203-400 GPU with 10,572 FP32 CUDA cores, a 256-bit memory bus, 16 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, and consumes 400W of power. The power consumption is higher than the 320W of the 4080.
As for an official release date, Nvidia still hasn’t announced anything, while leaks have mostly fallen short. There was one leak that claimed the cards would launch end of September 2024, but that now seems unlikely.
What do these leaks mean for the 5090 and 5080?
The specifications for the RTX 5090 are nothing short of impressive, although the power consumption of 600 W puts a damper on things. Hopefully the cooling system that Nvidia develops for it will be able to keep it running at a reasonable level (maybe the Cooler Master will be up to the task?). However, it will not address the steep environmental impact of that power – not to mention the fact that the price for this thing will be astronomical.
If we can trust the leaks, the RTX 5080 is starting to be quite disappointing. The fact that we only get 16GB of VRAM for what should be a premium card is definitely a joke. It reminds me of the embarrassing RTX 4080 variant with only 12GB VRAM that was later ‘not launched’ after public outcry.
The worst part is that the 5080 will undoubtedly cost an eye-watering amount of money and yet have barely more VRAM than an underpowered last-gen card that was canceled. It’s baffling at this point that Nvidia is still releasing graphics cards like this. Not to mention that the wattage is way too high for the level of performance it will surely offer if this leak is true.
Can we get some budget cards instead? The average gamer is dying of thirst waiting for an affordable way to upgrade their gaming rigs.