The $2,000 Nvidia RTX 5090 is so powerful that it made me wonder if there were such a thing as too many frames when it came to PC gaming. The thought didn’t occur to me until I played Dragon Age: The Veilguard with Nvidia’s touted Multi Frame Generation as part of its DLSS 4 update. During a hectic enemy encounter, it went above 360 FPS on the highest graphical settings and even higher when the action died down. It’s partly a factor of the new Blackwell architecture, but the graphics card is only a vehicle. The rest is AI and “fake frames.”
More to the point, it’s a process called Multi Frame Generation. With the launch of the latest update to Nvidia’s AI upscaler DLSS 4, the new Nvidia cards can essentially generate up to three frames in between two rendered frames. If the card is already powerful, then multi-frame gen is like putting a cherry on top of the most expensive, decadent gold leaf sundae. What’s the difference between playing a single-player roleplaying game at 120 FPS versus 360 FPS? After playing multiple big-name titles with the new DLSS 4 capabilities, I can’t tell whether there’s any reason you need those framerates other than the primordial joy of watching a number go up.
This isn’t a full review of Nvidia’s new GPU. I can’t compare the RTX 5090 Founders Edition to the $1,600 RTX 4090 because I don’t have access to one. I can compare it to the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070 Ti Super, solid cards with asking prices well below the 5090. With any high-end card, you always need to rely on software. That’s true for the 5090 as well. If you want to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with max settings and ray tracing enabled without DLSS, you won’t hit 60 FPS. With DLSS on balanced settings, you’ll see over 100 FPS. When you apply frame gen, you get a kick out of the high number, but as with anything generated with the help of AI, there will inevitably be some unintended side effects.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition is set to launch on Jan. 30.
How Do Games Run with All the RTX 5090’s Bells and Whistles?
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 specs are only slightly less ludicrous than its price tag. The card is based on the new Blackwell architecture, and the two-fan Founders Edition config packs 32 GB of VRAM, 21,760 CUDA cores with a 2.01 GHz base clock, and a 2.41 GHz boost clock. The card comes with 4th-gen ray tracing cores with a claimed 318 TFLOPS performance. All that’s well and good, but Nvidia has focused most of its attention on the 5th-gen Tensor cores and the promised 3,352 TOPS of AI performance.
The AI is the name of the game here. It would be difficult to justify the price increase without the Blackwell architecture and multi frame gen capabilities. Like previous versions of frame gen first released with DLSS 3, this inputs a generated frame between two rendered frames. Multi Frame Gen is better than before, according to Nvidia. It should be more efficient and 40% faster. What helps is it uses an AI Management Processor on the GPU itself to assign these various AI tasks.
The Blackwell cards use so-called “flip metering” when generating frames. This slots them in such a way to reduce latency. Even then, Nvidia wants you to rely on RTX Reflex 2 to reduce latency further. If this is all starting to sound like a lot to add on top of the traditional horsepower of a new graphics processor, that’s because it is.
Some games won’t be quick on the draw to update their UI for Multi Frame Gen or any new DLSS 4 features. The Nvidia app includes a DLSS override feature that lets you force it to upgrade to the new upscaler and frame gen. Either way, you can choose 4x, 3x, or 2x frame gen.
Older RTX cards will receive some upgrades to DLSS 4. Still, while the RTX 40-series will have access to the transformer model DLSS and some upgrades to 2x frame generation, Nvidia said the Blackwell architecture is necessary for Multi Frame Generation.
How Do Games Play When Most of Your Frames are Generated?
I tested Nvidia’s new flagship on the prebuilt Origin PC Neuron 3500X, which included an Intel Core Ultra 285K CPU and 32 GB of LDDR5X RAM. The PC packs a 1000 W 80 Plus Gold PSU. The power supply is the minimum Nvidia recommends for the 5090. This is a near-$3,400 desktop tower MSRP. A 1000 W PSU is nominal for most high-end PCs, though before, it was for the sake of having headroom and for future-proofing. Considering the RTX 5090 is $2,000, every other component you need to make the most of the GPU capabilities makes an excessive PC feel more excessive.
There’s an unnerving feeling when you jump into a game and watch that frame counter skyrocket. There’s a sense that this can’t be real, and you immediately look for problems. The thing is, I couldn’t spot many or practically any visual discrepancies. I analyzed the foliage as closely as possible in Dragon Age: The Veilguard but couldn’t find any noticeable issues with sharpness or textures.
I took it into other demanding games, like Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077. I never thought I’d ever witness Cyberpunk push 200 FPS, but life tends to throw its curveballs. Multi Frame Gen also meant I could push path tracing to ultra and still maintain such high FPS anybody looking on would assume I’m faking it (and to a point, I am).
While cruising the streets of Night City on a bike, I didn’t encounter any hints of hitching. However, I noticed some of the lights on Jackie’s bike oddly flickering while driving around at high speed. The flickering occurred at 2x, 3x, and 4x frame gen, though it was worse when relying on more generated frames. You can see the issue for yourself in the video above.
I won’t say I wasn’t distracted by the odd UI flickering, though the game was perfectly playable anyway. I also didn’t notice any floatiness in the controls or artifacts in the visuals, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any other issues I couldn’t make out myself. With Reflex 2, I didn’t notice any responsiveness issues either.
Without Frame Gen turned on, Cyberpunk was running at about 100 FPS with DLSS upscaling on balanced mode. Without DLSS, it would run at sub-60 FPS. The game is perfectly playable on an RTX 5090 without frame gen. The excess frames don’t necessarily add to the experience. Those “fake frames” could distract some players more than it aids.
I was struck by how normal games looked while running all these generated frames. In Dragon Age: The VeilguardI noticed one cutscene seemed to pass too fast, but the issue didn’t repeat afterward. Playing Alan Wake III can’t possibly get beyond 60 FPS with path tracing on Ultra and every other setting turned up to 11, even with the 5090 and DLSS on balance. When enabling 4x multi frame gen, it jumps to past 190 FPS. There were odd issues with pop-in, but that’s a known issue for the game running on the maximum settings on PC. I tried it and found that the difference between 70 FPS without frame gen and 250 FPS with 4x frame gen didn’t disrupt gameplay.
Is the RTX 5090’s Frame Gen Even Necessary?
But does it enhance gameplay? I normally test games at 4K on an AOC U27G3X monitor, which only goes up to a 120 Hz refresh rate. That’s perfectly fine for most GPUs, and it would be fine for the 5090 if it weren’t for multi-frame generation. Without the 2x, 3x, or 4x frame generation, I could only hope to hit around 100 FPS with medium DLSS upscaling and no path tracing for the most demanding titles.
If I wanted to make the most of 360 FPS, I would need a really, really expensive monitor like the LG Ultragear monitor that can go up to 480 Hz refresh rates, but then you may sacrifice the sacred 4K resolution. This last CES was stuffed with 240 Hz 4K OLED monitors from every OEM under the sun. You could grab a beautiful, high-end curved monitor that does 4K and 240 Hz for well over $1,000, but you’ll struggle to find one to make sense of all those frames. LG’s lauded bendable 5K2K monitor will only stick at 165 Hz if you want a higher resolution.
So, plenty of monitors can do 240 Hz, but fewer do more. That’s because there’s a point when framerate doesn’t make a material difference. Even a professional FPS esports competitor will compete on a 240 Hz monitor. You won’t notice a major difference between 120 FPS and 240 FPS if you game casually. I took the 5090 for a spin with Marvel Rivals. It’s the kind of game that doesn’t demand too much from a PC. It will have over 300 FPS with multi frame gen. I’m not a capable enough gamer to know whether the generated frames help or hinder me. It’s not going to make my aim better, in either case.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made it clear in a recent Q&A with press and analysts that the company priced RTX 5090 at $2,000, knowing your average gamer won’t afford it. In the CEO’s words, this is the GPU for the people who want” the best,” and they don’t care what they spend to get “the best.” Having the best also means you would need the best CPU, the highest-rated power supply, and one of the most expensive monitors you can buy. It’s a card made for people where money is no object. At that point, what is the point of a review? You already know the 5090 is a step above the 4090. It had better be because it cost $400 more than Nvidia’s previous flagship.
You still need a game to run at a stable 60 FPS to make frame generation useful, which is why I’m more curious about the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti for the sake of gamers who can’t spend the equivalent of their monthly rent or mortgage payment on a single graphics card. Multi Frame Gen will be a better bargain for cheaper cards. That’s why I’m more excited for the still unannounced RTX 5060. That will depend on how good the base card offers a standard frame rate with fully rendered frames. Still, budget gamers are used to making compromises. Those who pay $2,000 for a graphics card demand none.
