GeForce RTX 5090 vs GTX 980 Ti

We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB with 170 pipelines and 21760 shaders against the 9 years and 9 months older GTX 980 Ti 6 GB that utilizes 22 pipelines and 2816 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Value for money (Beta)

We use average GPU prices from all manufacturers by default. Enter the current price of a specific card for better accuracy.
Currency
32 GB GDDR7
VS
6 GB GDDR5
19.6
(Bad)
Value Index
13.2
(Bad)

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of GTX 980 Ti over RTX 5090
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 5090
  • Performs significantly better (up to 8.9x) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • 17.2x higher maximum theoretical performance (104.8 vs 6.1 TFLOPS)
  • Manufactured using a more efficient 4 nm process technology
  • Shows 5.3x higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 207 vs 39 FPS
  • Ray-tracing support with 170 dedicated RT cores

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
336
247
233
187
88
51
40
27
The Witcher 3
364
327
237
123
83
66
46
22
Counter-Strike 2
363
265
202
99
133
91
67
30
Far Cry 6
237
202
190
121
73
61
45
25
Hogwarts Legacy
249
199
166
97
44
34
25
12
CoD: Modern Warfare III
334
322
260
184
57
46
31
23
Ghost of Tsushima
221
185
175
113
41
33
24
12
Cyberpunk 2077
261
233
160
77
43
44
24
11
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
329
302
238
128
76
70
47
22
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 299 71
1080p Ultra 254 55
1440p Ultra 207 39
4K Ultra 125 20
Margin of Error Low Low

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
RTX 5090 +792%
52764
5913
Time Spy 46873 5855
Solar Bay 236689 -
Port Royal 38202 3250
Fire Strike 87569 19504
Wild Life Extreme 108751 11870
Night Raid 206648 70127
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
RTX 5090 +739%
419309
49950
Background Blur 333 img/sec 134.8 img/sec
Face Detection 298.5 img/sec 59.8 img/sec
Horizon Detection 21.7 Gpixels/sec 2.37 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 33.7 Gpixels/sec 3.79 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 34.5 Gpixels/sec 3.46 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 2.53 Gpixels/sec 0.22 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 2850 Gpixels/sec 191.9 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 59146.9 FPS 4183.6 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Hardware benchmark using Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine
Cinebench 2024 GPU
n/a
3352

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
RTX 5090 +186%
39012
13619
G2D Mark 1410 849
DirectX 11 340 FPS 106 FPS
DirectX 12 179 FPS 55 FPS
GPU Compute 24383 Ops/s 6093 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5], [6] – 10759 & 14836 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
RTX 5090 +2728%
15068.71
532.9
Sources: Blender [9], [10] – 3225 & 178 samples

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
RTX 5090 +598%
53861
7711
GB6 ML Half Precision
RTX 5090 +986%
81080
7464
GB6 ML Quantized
RTX 5090 +629%
38938
5338
Image Classification (SP) 18948 3173
Image Segmentation (HP) 55109 4916
Image Super Resolution (Q) 58478 7407
Face Detection (HP) 114685 8201
Pose Estimation (Q) 344729 27221
Text Classification (SP) 4464 1675
Machine Translation (HP) 8184 2607
Object Detection (SP) 27802 4123
Depth Estimation (Q) 85572 11660
Style Transfer (SP) 687080 55570
Framework ONNX ONNX
Backend DirectML DirectML
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of GeForce RTX 5090 and GTX 980 Ti

General

Vendor Nvidia Nvidia
Build Discrete Discrete
Released January 7, 2025 June 2, 2015
Launch price (MSRP) $1999 $649
Case Desktop Desktop
Purpose Gaming Gaming
Segment High-end High-end
Architecture Blackwell 2.0 Maxwell 2.0
GPU Codename GB202-300 GM200
Successor - - GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
Recommended CPU - Intel Core Ultra 9 285K or above -
Desktop GPU rating (2nd and 77th place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 2017 MHz 1000 MHz
Boost Clock 2407 MHz 1076 MHz
Shading Units 21760 2816
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 680 176
Render Output Units (ROPs) 176 96
Compute Units (Pipelines) 170 22
Tensor Cores 680 No
Ray-tracing Cores 170 No
L1 Cache 128KB per cluster 48KB per cluster
L2 Cache 96MB shared 3MB shared
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 424 GPixel/s 103 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 1637 GTexel/s 189 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
RTX 5090 +1618%
104.8 TFLOPS
6.1 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 5.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
TGP 575 W 250 W
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Fabrication Process 4 nm 28 nm
Die Size 750 mm² 601 mm²
Transistor Count 92.2 billion 8 billion
Transistor Density 122.93 MTr/mm² 13.31 MTr/mm²

Memory

Memory Type GDDR7 GDDR5
Memory Size 32 GB 6 GB
Memory Clock 1750 MHz 1753 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 28000 Mbps 7000 Mbps
Bus 512-bit 384-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
RTX 5090 +432%
1792 GB/s
336.6 GB/s

API

DirectX 12.2 12
Vulkan 1.4 1.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 3.0 3.0
CUDA 12.0 5.2
Ray Tracing Yes No
DLSS DLSS 4 No
DisplayPort 2.1b 1.2

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
4 (50%)
4 (50%)
Total votes: 8

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