GeForce RTX 5090 with lower TDP: performance with 575, 450 and 400 W against RTX 4090 in the benchmark 130 comments
The GeForce RTX 5090, with a TDP of 575 watts, is on average 24% faster in the UHD benchmark than the GeForce RTX 4090 with its TDP of 450 watts. But what happens if you slow down the GeForce RTX 5090 to 450 watts or even less power consumption? Techconseil tested it during the RTX 5090 test.
RTX 5090 vs. RTX 4090 with lower TDP
At this point, the results will again be presented separately. In addition to 450 watts as a direct comparison point, Techconseil also tested a TDP of 400 watts. Less than 400 watts is not possible with the RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition (69% power target). The firmware prevents this.
400 watts TDP seems to be the minimum
Even with an Asus GeForce RTX 5090 Astral (test) we cannot go lower for the moment. The power target for this model can only be reduced to 66, which – based on the higher TDP of 600 watts – again means 400 watts. Nvidia therefore seems to have set 400 watts and no percentage of the standard TDP as the lower limit.
Loss of performance with less TDP
For comparison, the GeForce RTX 4090 followed the same path with 450 watts and 350 watts. From 450 to 350 and from 575 to 450 watts, the drop in TDP is 22 percent.
Above the RTX 5090 FE with 575 W TDP, below the RTX 4090 FE with 450 W TDP
What is known about the RTX 4090 is that in modern gaming, it doesn’t matter whether it can squeeze out its maximum power of 450 watts or only a maximum of 350 watts (-22%): on average, the card graph only loses two percentage points. performance in raster games. In individual games this can be as high as 5 percent, but this is the exception and not the rule. And what about the GeForce RTX 5090?
The GeForce RTX 5090 also doesn’t need 575 watts in every game; on average, it runs around 480 watts (RTX 4090: 380 watts).
However, the graphics card with its massive 450 watt GPU (-125 W, -22%) loses on average more than twice as much performance as the 350 watt GeForce RTX 4090 (-100 watts, -22%): 5 There It is percent less FPS with the GeForce RTX 5090 at 450 watts, and in individual games the performance loss is also 7 to 14 percent.
It’s 14% in Space Marine 2, where Nvidia’s new flagship starts to fail at 450 watts.
Graphics card TDP 575 Watt 450 Watt 400 Watt 350 Watt RTX 5090 FE 100% 95% 90% – RTX 4090 FE – 100% – 98%
With 400 (-175 watts, -30%) instead of 450 watts, the GeForce RTX 5090 loses on average 5% more performance, so the graphics card is only 12% faster than the GeForce RTX 4090 with its full 450 watts. In individual games, the graphics card becomes 7-9% slower than with 450 watts. In Space Marine 2 and therefore in the worst case, the difference in FPS between a maximum of 400 and a maximum of 575 watts is 28 percent, in Final Fantasy XVI and therefore in the best case it is only by 4 percent. The reason: in FF XVI, the RTX 5090 does not reach its maximum TDP when unbraked, but in Space Marine 2 it does.
Conclusion
You can slow down the TDP of the GeForce RTX 5090 to the level of the RTX 4090 (450 watts) without losing the average performance advantage compared to a lot of games in UHD. The reason: Even though almost 24% more FPS in the benchmark corresponds to 28% more TDP, the performance benefits in games do not primarily come from the additional consumption above 450 watts, but mainly from the 33% larger chip.
However, the lead in the 450 watt duel is then reduced to 17 percent. In titles in which the 5090 uses close to its 575 watts, there are sometimes more. The decision to lower the TDP of the RTX 5090 is not as obvious as it was with the RTX 4090.
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Topics: GeForce GeForce RTX 50 GeForce RTX 5090 GeForce RTX 5090 & 5080 Release graphics cards Nvidia Nvidia Blackwell
An engineer by training, Alexandre shares his knowledge on GPU performance for gaming and creation.
