In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 8 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of whether turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. Cyberpunk 2077 is also tested with Super Sampling (DLSS/FSR/XeSS). In total, each video card is tested 60 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors, and 240 helps show the performance ideal for the latest higher refresh displays.

So how did the Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition perform? Well, this is a flagship card and while our tests have been updated with newer more demanding games it still steamrolled right through all of the 1080p tests with the 9800X3D still being the limit in a lot of those tests. All but one result was up over 240 FPS with that last result just being under. At 1440p we see a few more results in the 120-239 FPS range with 14 results up over 240 FPS and 4 over 120. Then at 4k the 5090 still handled everything with ease. Every result was over 120 FPS but only 7 were up over 240 FPS at this resolution.

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To get a better look at some of the cards that are the closest competition to the RTX 5090 I put together all of the results from our tests and averaged them out by resolution. The RTX 5090 is out in front as expected but this better shows us the average result. At 4k which is the only resolution I would imagine anyone would be looking at this card for the 7900 XTX averaged 145.7, the RTX 4090 averaged 170.7, and the RTX 5090 was up over 200 at 226.3 FPS. That is almost a 59% increase over the 7900 XTX and 32% over the RTX 4090.

1080p

1440p

4k

RTX 5090 FE

313

290

226.3

RTX 4090 FE

280.9

245.9

170.7

AMD RX 7900 XTX

257.4

225.8

145.7

 

Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. There weren’t any big surprises in any of the testing here. The RTX 5090 Founders Edition was at the top of the charts in all of the games tested. As you get down below 4k, even with the updated test suite and new faster CPU we still see games being CPU limited, especially Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties and Borderlands 3 at their lower detail settings. No one is going to be running the RTX 5090 at anything but the highest detail but those medium detail settings will be important as we test some of the medium to lower-end cards once they come out.

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Another new addition to my testing was a few additional tests using Cyberpunk 2077. This is one of only a few games that support most of the tech from all three of the GPU companies. So I did tests at medium and ultra detail while having Super Sampling on for all of the cards. Using whatever the latest and greatest is supported. In this case, I tested with DLSS, specifically DLSS 3 with frame generation. Cyberpunk does support the newer DLSS 4 with a beta version of the game. Once that hits a widespread release I will most likely change to those results. Don’t worry though, I will check that out later in our DLSS section. This gives us a good look at the performance you can expect to see. Just a note here, the AMD cards only allowed FSR when running windowed mode whereas Nvidia only performed well in fullscreen mode. The 7900 XTX does jump up over the RTX 4090 in this comparison but the 5090 is still way out in front.

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