01-07-2025 12:10 PM - last edited 3 weeks ago
Nvidia launches the new Series 50 on January 30 2025, see the introduction here:
Press release:
- and Nvidia promises once again great performance:
Problem is that this performance primarily is achieved with DLSS4 - without DLSS4 support, the party is greatly reduced:
Very few VR games support DLSS - and if supported that's DLSS 2.0, like in MADiSON.
To me, DLSS4 is worthless - I only use VR, I never play 2D games. Also DLSS4 does not work with AMD's video cards thereby limiting adoption.
No doubt the RTX 5090 will be faster in plain vanilla 2D or VR games than the 4090, but right now it's unknown how much. Also costing $2k, the 5090 is the most expensive card ever produced by Nvidia and targeted ordinary-ish consumers. The RTX 5080 at $1k may be the sweeter spot for many enthusiasts.
RTX 5090 has 600 watts of power consumption, so easily the most power-hungry gpu so far - but again, we need to see the real benchmark numbers, which hopefully will arrive in a few weeks.
Fun thing, I've been into these launches of new video card since the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics in 1996. That's close to 30 years now. My enthusiasm for new video cards has been much weakened, too high power consumption, too expensive (normally a high-end video card would be about $500), tons of features I don't care about - and then the risk of VR compatibility issues. So never upgrade to a new video card, before Meta supports it - and that can take many months, if ever. Due to potential VR compatibility issues, I'm never an early adopter of new video cards. 2c.
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
3 weeks ago - last edited 3 weeks ago
It seems the RTX 5080 exposes Nvidias real problem - they have a hard time making gpus faster without needing DLSS4 tricks - the 5080 is only about 10% faster than the 4080:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5080-founders-edition/34.html
Power consumption is fine though - but it's only 50% faster than my RTX 3090, and 50% isn't cutting my cake:
I might need to wait for the 6080 - to get hopefully at least 24GB vram and maybe close to 100% better speed than 3090 - at 300 watts.
The 5090 feels forced - too heavy (3+ kg), too thick (4 slots or close), and too much power consumption.
The 5090 is 50% faster than 5080, but 5090 uses 80% more watts - clearly Nvidia is burning the 5090 midnight oil to get that performance.
The distance in performance between 5080 and 5090 is also too big with 50% - should not be more than about 15-30 % - I guess there's plenty of room for a 5080 Ti/Super 😎
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
a week ago - last edited a week ago
Seems like shortage - and the new tariff against China, which also hits Taiwan - have driven up prices for video cards - like the Asus 5090 Astral now hitting $3409:
Then again, for those enjoying to burn money, Asus has the 5090 Gold edition:
The price is unknown, but if you want to know the price before buying, this card is probably not for you 😉
Also DLSS4 seems to introduce noticeable latency and artifacts - and there are now reports of users who cannot get their 5080s or 5090s to post/boot, more info here:
The 4090s also had issues with meltdowns for the power-plugin-ports, so far I've not seen such issues with the 5090s - but several cards failing to boot (or causing black screens) does sound worrying.
In the meantime, I'll enjoy my RTX 3090 some more - and it fully supports my good old Rift CV1 with perfect ASW 2.0 🤓 Then again, with a 5090 I'd probably not need ASW 2.0 anymore 🤔 😄
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
a week ago
It does seem the 5080 is a decent overclocker adding up to 15% additional performance. Puts it with a percent or 2 of the 4090 but with the added benefit of GDDR7 and better efficiency.
Although of course lacking the additional VRAM
a week ago - last edited a week ago
I stand corrected - it does seem like the 5090 is prone to similar overheating as the 4090s at launch - causing meltdowns - more here according to Tom's Hardware:
- and here:
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
a week ago - last edited a week ago
Not sure about the mental status of this dude, lol - he does trigger many alarms and red flags, but as long as he's not going to spend time alone with my kids or pilot my plane 🙂 He does however test his RTX 5090 with a Quest 3 and delivers quite a lot of VR benchmark results. Now, measuring fps in VR games is difficult and requires special equipment which I do not think this dude has - so take the measurements with a grain of salt and some pepper. Also remember that with vsync on, the RTX 4090 will be cut down to 45 fps, if the performance is in the range of 45 - 89 fps in 90 Hz, while the RTX 5090 will show 90 fps if performing at 90+ fps. So - in theory and just as an example - RTX 4090 at 89 fps will show 45 fps, while 5090 at 91 fps will show 90 fps. Babeltech used FCAT VR benchmark tool from Nvidia to get reliable measurements in VR, more here:
https://babeltechreviews.com/oculus-rift-vr-benching-amd-vs-nvidia-part-2/
Just be aware in the vid below that some big differences between 4090 and 5090 that can be exaggerated and might depend on the game and the rig. That said, for now I have not come across better VR results comparing 4090 vs 5090:
- and remember, other PCVR users do not look and talk like this dude! 😅
The results from Red Matter 2 did seem strange to me - I played through the entire game in solid 80 fps using Index res 400% res, and he can't get more than 46 fps with the RTX 4090 and Quest 3 res 400%. Sure the Quest 3 has higher panel res than Index, but the RTX 4090 is about 70% faster than my RTX 3090. In Red Matter 2 res 400%, the RTX 5090 was close to 3 times faster than the RTX 4090, which did seem odd to me - of course it could be true, which would be amazing, but these results need to be reproduced by others - note the red circles I've added to the image below:
PS. Seems the scalpers are having great times in Europe - no one does the limbo here 🤣
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"
a week ago
Hi Rune,
Red Matter 2 dev here. For the record, I’m fairly certain you tested RM2 back in the day when it still hadn’t received the latest graphical update with the most recent bells and whistles. That probably account for the difference.
a week ago - last edited Wednesday
Thanks, and of course you could be right - but usually the 5090 is not 2.5 times (=150%) faster than the RTX 4090, and that difference seems very odd to me.
I was more wondering if the RTX 4090 could hit some ram limit with Quest 3 res 400% - where the 5090 could benefit from the 32GB. Running low on ram could explain the sudden massive slowdown of the RTX 4090. For the RM2 testing, the following config was used:
GPUS: RTX 5090/4090
CPU: 7950X3D
RAM: 64GB 6000Mhz/CL30 DDR5 RAM
Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop, Godlike: 6144x6432(400%) Per Eye
That res translates into 79 million pixels per frame combining both eyes - so quite an insane res, more than 2 x 8k res. Also the Quest 3 was using 120 Hz.
Also results from Metro could indicate that the 4090 hits a wall even with 24GB vram:
Here the 5090 is more than 3 times faster than the 4090 - extremely unusual results. But a lot of other variable could interfere. I'd love to see same test made with Index and other hmds not using streaming or VD. And I'd love to see other Quest 3 users verify these results made by one YouTuber, who does not seem to have much experience testing hardware.
Of course if the 32GB should make the above possible that would be a valid reason to get the 5090 - for those wanting to use such extreme resolutions, and that might be a very small minority. 2c.
(Btw, if some thinks I'm joking about any game needing 32GB of vram, see how easily Alyx used nearly 20GB vram here with a Reverb G2 and RTX 3090 with 24GB vram as res increased - jump to 9:36 to see the 18.5GB vram use:
Thus it's very likely that RTX 4090 may have hit a vram wall when extreme Quest 3 resolutions were used. )
Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"