NVIDIA RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 specs leaked: Everything you need to know
Nvidia RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 specs have constantly been in the news due to the mirage of leaks and rumors in the past few months. Almost every detail was shared, from memory capacity to CUDA cores, but the credibility of this information was somewhat questionable. However, well-known leaker @kopite7kimi has disclosed some new RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 specs to put things into perspective.
We discuss the new leaks and everything you need to know about the two new Nvidia Blackwell GPUs.
Note: Aspects of this article are based on leaks and speculations, and are subject to change. Readers are advised to take the information herein with a grain of salt.
New Nvidia RTX 5090 specs leak suggests it may require liquid cooling
According to @kopite7kimi on X, the Nvidia RTX 5090 will be based on the GB202 die and have a total of 21,760 CUDA cores. This user earned much credibility by accurately leaking many Nvidia GPUs in the past; however, take the details with a grain of salt.
Since the full GB202 die is supposed to have 24,576 cores, it indicates that the Nvidia RTX 5090 die is a cut-down variant. The full GH202 die could be reserved for a possible RTX 5090 Ti, though unlikely given AMD's exit from the high-end graphics card market.
If there's no competition from AMD, Nvidia will have little to no reason to release the full GB202 die. Also, @kopite7kimi believes it will have 32GB of memory configured at 512-bit bus width with fast 32Gbps GDDR7 memory modules, as we reported earlier.
Also, this user states that the TDP of this would be 600W, which is a lot more than what has been previously leaked, and cooling this beast will be quite challenging. Nvidia may need to consider liquid cooling to keep the GPU temperature adequately down. Not to mention, it will probably require many users to buy a new PSU.
Here's how the Nvidia RTX 5090 specs compare to the RTX 4090:
As observed, the RTX 5090 has significantly higher CUDA cores, L2 cache, memory capacity, memory bus width, and more than its predecessor, RTX 4090. It is potentially shaping up to be an excellent GPU, but a lot depends on the pricing.
Nvidia has been steadily increasing the price of its flagship graphics cards since the launch of the first Nvidia RTX graphics card, and the rumor mill seems to suggest that the pricing could be well over $2,000. If Nvidia does use liquid cooling for this card, there's a good reason for that price increase.
What are the new Nvidia RTX 5080 specs leaks?
X user @kopite7kimi also leaked the specs of the Nvidia RTX 5080 following his RTX 5090 specs post on X. This user claims the RTX 5080 will have 10,752 CUDA cores, which is higher than its predecessor but not that much. It will also have 16GB of memory with a 256-bit bus and fast 32Gbps GDDR7 memory modules.
Here's how the Nvidia RTX 5080 specs compare to the RTX 4080:
As is noticeable, there's is a decent specs bump compared to its predecessor, but it's not as big of a jump as RTX 4090 to 5090. The Nvidia RTX 5080 has also been leaked to have 400W of TDP. This is also much higher than its predecessor's 320W limit but can still be air-cooled. After all, the Nvidia RTX 4090 with its 450W TDP is still air-cooled.
Also read: Should you wait for Nvidia RTX 5090 or buy the RTX 4090?
Differences between Nvidia RTX 5080 and RTX 5090
There's a stark contrast between the Nvidia RTX 5090 and RTX 5080's specs. The latter has half of the former, meaning there will be a significant performance gap between the two, which can only be filled by perhaps the RTX 5080 Ti. However, it's hard to say since there has been no leak suggesting the existence of such a card yet.
Can the Nvidia RTX 5080 beat the Nvidia RTX 4090?
As we now know, the Nvidia RTX 5080 has around 10,752 CUDA cores and a 256-bit memory bus, which is much lower than what the RTX 4090 has. One might argue that the changes in the new Nvidia Blackwell architecture and the presence of GDDR7 memory modules would be enough to bridge the gap in their specs, but it's a tough sell.
If we take the leaked RTX 5080 specs at face value, the RTX 4090 will still have over 50% higher CUDA cores. The former GPU can't overcome that, irrespective of architectural changes and the presence of the GDDR7 memory. There's a good chance that the RTX 5080 doesn't beat the RTX 4090, but it may come close.
Check out our other articles on Nvidia RTX 5090:
- Nvidia RTX 5090 expected specs, performance, price, and more
- RTX 5090 might be way more powerful than 4090, per recent specs leak
- RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 rumored to launch later this year