NVIDIA - GeForce RTX 4090 vs NVIDIA - GeForce RTX 5090

The GeForce RTX 5090 is the clear pick on raw spec strength, leading by 8.2 points on the Mars Score. The margin is wide enough that the underdog only makes sense if its individual strengths line up with what you specifically need.

Pick the GeForce RTX 4090 if you care most about tdp and boost clock. The biggest gaps in its favor are tdp, boost clock.

Pick the GeForce RTX 5090 if you push the hardware — gaming, on-device AI, heavy multitasking — and the extra compute headroom is worth the trade-offs. Its strongest claims are vram, memory bus, cuda / stream cores, among others.

Both ship with comparable dlss, so those specs don't separate the two — focus on the differences below.

Bottom line: the GeForce RTX 5090 is the safer default. The other model is the right choice only when its specific advantages line up with your priorities.