The world’s fastest gaming CPU, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, might be at the root of some unusual benchmark metrics for the NVIDIA RTX 5090. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D quickly earned the title as the world’s fastest gaming processor back when it launched in November. AMD shocked the PC community with its launch when it was discovered that AMD re-engineered the X3D line by flipping its 3D V-cache to the bottom of the package thus allowing more efficient cooling for the CCD and in turn higher clock rates. This 2nd gen 3D V-cache ushered in a swath of reviews giving praise to the gaming processor’s high framerates at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. However, a number of reviews for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 are revealing some unusual results at 4K.
For a quick refresher please be sure to check our reviews for the NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition, here, and an overclocking review here. Reviews across the internet have been somewhat consistent in their reported framerates of the RTX 5090 vs the previous king of GPUs, the RTX 4090. However, there have been some outlier results regarding 4K performance that is leaving some scratching their heads. CPU bottlenecks are to be expected at 1080p and 1440p where framerates go well into the hundreds of FPS but are fairly rare when it comes to 4K when tasks tend to be more GPU bound but that may not be the case for the new flagship card.
Per our own review:
- RE: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle: “Even though we had this game at the “Supreme” quality setting, this is a bit of a lower-than-expected performance number as well in this game. It could be another case of the CPU holding it back, as a possibility.”
- RE: S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: “In Stalker 2 the RTX 5090 was 20% faster than the RTX 4090. We know that Stalker 2 is quite CPU-bound, so this could be another case of that happening. Regardless, that’s more than a few games there where the performance difference is a bit below expectations.”
Per TechSpot:
RE: Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered: “At 4K, the CPU bottleneck is mostly removed, but the RTX 5090 still appears slightly limited, averaging 212 fps. As a result, the RTX 5090 is just 26% faster than the RTX 4090.”
Per Hardware Canucks:
“This is a story of unrealized potential because even with today’s most powerful gaming CPU, the 9800X3D, this thing, in a lot of situations is still bottlenecked at the highest settings at 1440p, and even in some scenarios at 4K.”
PCIe issues?
Before going further it should be noted that multiple reviewers have done PCIe scaling testing for 3.0/4.0/5.0 and found minimal to no differences across 1080p/1440p/4K resolutions. In fact, the only real detail noted is that those with motherboards supporting 5.0 and using riser cards/cable for alternative mounting options of their RTX 50 series graphics card, may need to manually configure their motherboard’s PCIe version setting to match that of the riser card/cable else performance issues or crashing could occur. TechPowerUp did notice a bit of a difference for those using 3.0 when gaming at 1080p or 1440p with a 4% delta but that shrank to roughly 2% at 4K.
Per TechPowerUp:
“The 4% delta is only observed in 1080p and 1440p, resolutions where the bottleneck tilts closer to the CPU—in our case, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D which is the fastest gaming CPU. It’s only with 4K Ultra HD that the performance loss is closer to 2% on average.”
Driver issues, DLSS4, poor optimizations?
Now while it is possible that a CPU bottleneck is happening at 4K, something nearly every reviewer on the planet has adamantly denied happening for many years now, there could be other issues at play. A number of reviewers stated getting their FE review samples days just before the embargo lifted. NVIDIA has also coincided with releasing DLSS 4 which some games have adopted and between new drivers, and perhaps beta versions for DLSS 4, there could be problems at this level. It’s also a possibility that the increased power of the RTX 5090 is further exposing optimization issues for games at FPS reaching limits not previously available. One thing that is likely is that reviewers could end up updating their test results in the coming weeks, or months, as updates roll out. It will also interesting to see what happens when AMD’s 9900X3D and 9950X3D processors are tested with the RTX 5090.
Discussion (13 replies)
Join Discussion →Nice article thanks for starting the dig in! Will be following along for sure!
All very interesting.
Anyone have a spare $2k and an extra, hmm, how much would my energy bill go up? 7900 xtx to 5090?
I asked copilot. Not sure it got the idle and light to medium power usage right though. Anyone have a better model? Or perhaps a better question (that makes me think of the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy).
Asking CoPilot:
what is the tdp of the rx 7900 xtx?
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX has a maximum power draw (TDP) of 355 watts. However, some variants like the Sapphire 7900 XTX Nitro+ have a higher TDP of 420 watts.
Is there anything specific you'd like to know about this graphics card?
Assuming 350, and that I am in Reno Nevada and game 4 hours a day and have a light to medium load 10 hours on a computer with a 670e chipset and ryzen 7950x3d cpu, just changing the gpu from the 7900 xtx to an NVidia 5090, please estimate for me, how much I can expect my energy bill to increase?
Sure, let's break it down step by step:
[*]Daily Usage:
[*]Electricity Cost in Reno, NV: 11.05 cents/kWh
[*]Monthly Usage Calculation:
[*]Monthly Cost Calculation:
Estimated Increase: $26.68 - $16.23 = $10.45/month
So, you can expect your energy bill to increase by approximately $10.45 per month if you switch from the RX 7900 XTX to the NVIDIA RTX 5090.
I envy your 4hr a day availability. I consider it a good week if I get 4hrs total on a weekend.
Haven't crunched those numbers but given daily usage it seems plausible. Thankfully we were able to get solar installed a few years back so electricity isn't normally and issue any more. Paid off a while back and now I just smile when the bill comes. BTW my 4090 pulls between 420-520 when I do game, and sometimes slightly higher but pretty rare there, with most of the titles I like to play at 4K, so not that far off from a 5090.
Edit: Side note, the 4080 SUPER I have is probably the most energy efficient card I have ever seen. Between ~260W upto ~330 (rare and extreme cases) for 4K w/ DLSS quality at 60-120 FPS. It's almost more fun watching the TDP than gaming.
How do you check your watts?
I can check at the PSU level, using ICUE, to see how much it is taking from the wall and providing to my system, I dont get any kind of sub system breakdown though. Can Windows 11 see that? I dont see anything in the Resource monitor, or is there an App?
Thanks :)
Oh me at light use:
Me with POE 2 running - moderate to heavy use:
I've seen it get up to 600-650 but just spikes not sustained - that includes the 7950x3d, 3 NVME, a Sata, etc.
Mostly just by MSI AB but occasionally I'll take a look at what the UPS says for actual from the wall draw. It's rare when my 4090 rig pulls more than 600W but I think the most I've seen has been upwards of 750ish with real-world gaming and not just benchmarking to see something maxed out.
Ah cool. I will check it out.
Pretty interesting results. I'd say it's not bad as just a differential between two cards. But it's assuming full TDP for "light to medium use" for your cards. Not sure what the idle draw on these cards are - that number is harder to find sometimes.
Small correction:
TechSpot/HUB tested Spider-Man, not Spider-Man 2. ;)
j2c and hardware nexus use devices to specifically measure power draw and have posted numbers.
Still seems off that ltt did their I initial review with 7800x3ds.
They used those because they have a dozen of them they sourced to be similar in performence to allow parallel testing.
Fixed but coincidentally the 2nd game has also been reported as having a CPU bottleneck at 4K.
Is it physx causing that? :)
Funny you should mention that. I was doing some DLSS 4 transformer model ray reconstruction testing this weekend with CP2077 and Hogwarts and noticed NV listed it in their copyright notices before one of those games. It was a blink and miss it moment but I was a little surprised.