Palit RTX 5090 GameRock Review

1. Introduction2. Meet the Palit RTX 5090 GameRock3. Testing Methodology4. Game Benchmarks5. Clock Speed6. GPU Temperatures7. Acoustics8. Noise-Normalised Temperatures9. Power Draw and Efficiency10. Overclocking11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

Ever since the release of Palit's RTX 4090 GameRock, I've been waiting to see what the company would do next, and today we finally get our answer. That's because we're reviewing the RTX 5090 GameRock, featuring a bold, eye-catching design and a fat – effectively quad-slot – cooler. Concerns around pricing and availability remain just as pressing as they did when the RTX 5090 first launched, but what can this partner card bring to the table?

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:44 5090 pricing/availability – no pre-orders at all
01:21 GameRock design impressions
03:10 PCB and heatsink analysis
04:25 Test setup
04:52 Thermals and noise
06:05 Game benchmarks
06:51 Power – 12VHPWR is a huge concern
10:07 Overclocking
10:50 Closing thoughts

I remember the first time I opened the box of the last-gen Palit RTX 4090 GameRock and couldn't quite believe my eyes. The shroud was almost entirely covered in a crystal-like plastic, and once the system turned on, the RGB lighting was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

Following up something like that can often be tricky, but Palit has gone for what it describes as a ‘chameleon' aesthetic with the RTX 5090 GameRock. It's still incredibly eye-catching, but we take a closer look at the design on the next page.

It's also worth pointing out that I was sent the regular GameRock, rather than the GameRock OC, so my sample ships without a factory overclock – i.e. at reference spec.

	RTX 5090	RTX 5080	RTX 4090	RTX 4080 Super	RTX 4080
Process	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4	TSMC N4
SMs	170	84	128	80	76
CUDA Cores	21760	10752	16384	10240	9728
Tensor Cores	680	336	512	320	304
RT Cores	170	84	128	80	76
Texture Units	680	336	512	320	304
ROPs	176	112	176	112	112
GPU Boost Clock	2407 MHz	2617 MHz	2520 MHz	2550 MHz	2505 MHz
Memory Data Rate	28 Gbps	30 Gbps	21 Gbps	23 Gbps	22.4 Gbps
L2 Cache	98304 KB	65536 KB	73729 KB	65536 KB	65536 KB
Total Video Memory	32GB GDDR7	16GB GDDR7	24GB GDDR6X	16GB GDDR6X	16GB GDDR6X
Memory Interface	512-bit	256-bit	384-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	1792 GB/Sec	960 GB/Sec	1008 GB/Sec	736 GB/Sec	716.8 GB/Sec
TGP	575W	360W	450W	320W	320W

First, a quick spec recap. The RTX 5090 is built on the new GB202 die, measuring 750mm², though it's not quite a full implementation of the silicon. Instead we find a total of 11 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), each holding up to eight Texture Processing Clusters (TPCs), for a total of 85. Each TPC is home to two Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), giving us 170, and each SM still holds 128 CUDA Cores, meaning the RTX 5090 has an eye-watering total of 21760 shaders. We also find 170 RT cores, 680 Tensor cores, 680 Texture Units, and 176 ROPs.

This time around, however, there's no node-shrink, and GB202 remains fabricated on TSMC's N4 node, as per the RTX 40-series. As such, rated clock speed is not increased this generation and is actually touted slightly below that of the RTX 4090, with the RTX 5090 delivering a rated 2407MHz boost clock, compared to its predecessor's 2520MHz boost.

The memory configuration has seen significant upgrades, though. The RTX 5090 now comes equipped with a super-wide 512-bit memory interface, paired with 32GB GDDR7 memory running at 28Gbps, and that puts total memory bandwidth at a staggering 1792 GB/s. L2 cache is also increased to 98MB, up from the 74MB of the RTX 4090.

Considering the large increases to die size and core count, but with no node shrink, it's perhaps unsurprising to see power draw has increased, this time boasting a 575W TGP. This is something we focus on closely in this review, using our enhanced GPU power testing methodology, so read on for our most detailed power and efficiency testing yet.

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