Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
- Nvidia RTX 5090 and 5080 are said to have increased power usage
- RTX 5090 can claim 575W, a little less than some previous rumors
- RTX 5080 could hit 360W, which is unfortunately slightly above past speculation
Nvidia RTX 5090 and 5080 are expected to be revealed at CES 2025 – probably alongside the RTX 5070 models, too – and we just heard more about the possible power consumption of these next-generation GPUs.
VideoCardz noted that two regular hardware leakers on X, Hongxing2020 and Kopite7kimi, have come up with alleged power figures for these Blackwell GeForce graphics cards.
Assuming that his beliefs are on the money, the former leaker presented the claim that the RTX 5090 will demand 575W in terms of power consumption, and then Kopite7kimi responded with the they claim that the recently spotted RTX 5080 it will hit 360 W of power.
No clarification is provided on how big these GPUs could be, and if the RTX 5090 will be kept to a two-slot graphics card, which is the follow-up question that many X residents put on the thread above.
Analysis: Size up next-generation options
The reason people are wondering about the size of the next-generation flagship graphics card – apart from that it’s an obvious point of curiosity, anyway – is that the previous buzz from the vine suggested that we could see a RTX 5090 miraculously slim keeps to two slots in size from Nvidia. (While the RTX 4090 occupies three slots in a PC, at least – or four in many cases).
Essentially, with the 575W figure mentioned, people jump to the conclusion that this won’t be a two-slot board like that previous rumour. (Unless Nvidia really worked some magic with a slim cooling solution to keep a power-hungry graphics card in check). So, that’s why the question was asked.
In fact, 575W is a slight drop in a previous forecast from the rumormill that we see the RTX 5090 use 600W, and in this respect, it is a bit of positive news. Well, kind of – Kopite7kimi also suggested that the flagship power consumption will drop slightly in recent times – but clearly, this is still set to be a demanding GPU. From what we’ve heard elsewhere, it’s likely to be aimed more at professional use than PC gaming, and could be extremely expensive – although as a GeForce model, it’s still officially a consumer (gaming) card. , in theory.
If all this, of course, the RTX 5080 also looks strong on the side of the equation here. Actually, Kopite7kimi indicated that it could sit at around 350W in the past, so his prediction has been revised slightly to 360W here.
That could be bad news for anyone using a PC power calculator to find out if their power supply can handle a new RTX 5080, as approaching the 400W mark could mean that even a relatively beefy PSU could be driven closer on the edge of whether it works or not.
It will certainly put the RTX 5080 out of reach for my 650W power supply, but I’m still hoping that the RTX 5070 will be much thinner, and will be a good fit for a upgrade to my gaming PC – or RTX 5070 Ti, with some luck. In all honesty, I don’t expect the RTX 5080 to be in my price range anyway, especially given the rumors about the cost of these next generation graphics cards – other options will be on the table from AMD in RDNA 4 launches, so there is still to consider.
Whether all these predictions are accurate or not remains to be seen. Nvidia’s big reveal on January 6 – but in any case, everything from the rumor suggests that we will see an increase in energy consumption for the Blackwell graphics cards.
In addition to next-generation desktop graphics cards at CES 2025, we may also be treated to the launch of mobile versions, and maybe DLSS 4 to boot.
