A first look at Nvidia’s flagship RTX 5090 compared to the RTX 4090

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card is arriving later this month, and we’ve managed to unbox one and compare its design to the RTX 4090. Just like our first look at the RTX 5090, this isn’t a review. Performance figures, benchmarks, and impressions beyond the hardware are coming later.

The first thing that’s notable about the RTX 5090 is the packaging design has totally changed since the Founders Edition RTX 40-series. Nvidia has switched to housing the RTX 5090 inside a smaller bone-shaped gray cardboard shell that sits inside a much larger brown cardboard box.

The outer box — which reads “Inspired by gamers. Enhanced by AI. Built by Nvidia.” — holds a new power adapter cable for the RTX 5090 that includes an updated version of the regular 12VHPWR connector. You’ll need to use four regular PCIe eight-pin power connectors with this adapter, or a new 12V-2x6 cable. The 12V-2x6 is almost identical to the existing 12VHPWR, as the new connector has shorter sensing pins and slightly longer conductor terminals. The slight variation means that existing 12VHPWR cables will work with the RTX 5090 just fine.

The RTX 5090 itself is the same width and length as an RTX 4090, but it’s a lot slimmer now because it’s just a two-slot card. Compared to the three-slot RTX 4090, it’s impressive to see that Nvidia has managed to shrink its latest flagship GPU into this smaller form factor.

These exterior design changes also mean Nvidia has overhauled its cooling for the RTX 5090. It has moved to double flow-through fans that suck cooler air from below and exhaust it above the RTX 5090 into the rest of the case. There’s no rear exhaust on the RTX 5090 like there is on the RTX 40-series Founders Edition cards, but there are two little slots on either side to create an airflow boundary of sorts so that the warm air that’s exhausting out the top doesn’t recirculate below.

The PCB of the RTX 5090 is now located in the middle of the GPU, surrounded by big heat pipes that get cool air from the dual flow-through fans. This allows Nvidia to make the RTX 5090 Founders Edition small form factor certified, so it can fit into a variety of small cases. Nvidia has also relocated the power connector to be angled at the side, so it should be easier to fit into cases where the side panel comes close to touching the power cable.

At the rear there are three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and a single HDMI 2.1b port. Interestingly, Nvidia has flipped the ports upside down, so if you’re used to plugging your cables in a particular way or you have some tight cable management at the rear of your PC you’ll need to flip your cables accordingly.

Much like previous Founders Edition cards, the RTX 5090 also has LEDs that light up at the top and side of the card in white. Nvidia has also picked a slightly darker gray for the metal housing of the RTX 5090. It’s not as light as the regular RTX 40-series Founders Edition cards, but it’s also nowhere near as black as the RTX 40-series Super variants. It’s a refined color between the two.

We aren’t allowed to show the RTX 5090 inside a PC or powered on with its LED lights blazing just yet, but Jayztwocents got “special permission” to do a small form factor build if you’re interested in seeing how it squeezes into a small case. We’ll be back soon with a full review of the RTX 5090 to see exactly how it compares to the RTX 4090.