The expected news has arrived. Nvidia has announced a new generation of its GeForce RTX graphics cards for desktops and laptops: the GeForce RTX 50 Series.
Based on the new Blackwell architecture, the new RTX 50 Series GPUs is fitted with fifth-generation Tensor Cores and fourth-gen RT Cores.
The highest range of the RTX 50 Series, the RTX 5090 GPU, is claimed to have twice the performance of last generation’s RTX 4090.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, says the RTX 50 Series cards are “the most significant computer graphics innovation since we introduced programmable shading 25 years ago.”
The new RTX 50 Series cards also support the new iteration of Nvidia DLSS, DLSS 4. This upscaling tech powered by AI will be supported by more than 75 games on launch (including upcoming games like Doom: The Dark Ages as well as already-released titles) and promises to provide “greater stability, reduced ghosting, higher details and enhanced anti-aliasing in game scenes.”
A usual byproduct of DLSS upscaling is that images can look fuzzy or jagged, and DLSS 4 is addressing those issues, it looks like.
Other than significant use of AI in improving graphics rendering, the GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards also can improve a game’s AI, as in bots and in-game characters, the AI as known to gamers and the video game space, not the much-derided slop generation that is generative AI.
Krafton is implementing the new Nvidia Autonomous Game Characters (ACE) tech to power their “CPCs (Co-Playable Characters)” in games like PUBG and the upcoming life sim InZOI, for example. NetEase is implementing this tech for Naraka Bladepoint as well.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 will be released on January 30. GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 will arrive in February. Laptops powered by GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs will launch starting this March.