Nvidia’s 5090 is the first card ever to crack triple digits in Linus’ 4K Ultra preset tests in Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 may be a few years old, but it’s still, arguably the best-looking game ever made. While those on consoles enjoy stunning graphics, it’s on PC thanks to Nvidia’s Path Tracing where CP2077 really shines. Unsurprisingly, to get the best visuals from CD Projekt Red’s stunning sci-fi epic, you’re going to need the hardware to match.

Enter Nvidia’s RTX 5090, the incoming flagship taking over the helm from the RTX 4090, which has ruled unchallenged for a little over two years. Linus Tech Tips and his team were lucky enough to get their hands on the new card, and put it to the test across a suite of games (We recommend watching the full video as it’s, as expected, brilliant) – and one thing really stood out. For the first time ever in their tests, the RTX 5090 managed to achieve triple-digit performance on Cyberpunk 2077, hitting a 30 FPS lead over the RTX 4090 at 2160p, Ultra, RT off, and with DLSS off.

The newer card with its 32GB of VRAM clocked an impressive 111 FPS, compared to the 24GB-VRAM 4090’s (still decent) 77 FPS. Alan Wake 2 was another game to see a decent uplift with the 5090. The new 50-Series has come under some fire for its perceived reliance on AI-powered Multi-Frame Generation to boost performance via DLSS 4, so it’s encouraging, and not wholly surprising, to see decent uplifts without that enabled on some of the world’s most demanding games.

Still, the 5090 is very much targeting the 4K end of the market – and with Multi Frame Generation very much in the driving seat, will likely find a home with gamers who prefer single-player, non-competitive games but want to crank every little setting up to the absolute maximum. Upon the 5090’s reveal, many decided to put their 4090’s on to eBay – but as testing and benchmarks have come out, it’s clear the 4090 is still a very, very capable card.

The 5090 is set to launch on January 30 and is expected to sell out within minutes.

About the Author

Talal Musa

Talal has been writing about videogames for nearly 17 years. He has interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry and leads content at BGFG.