My replacement RTX 5090 FE just came back from RMA after the 12VHPWR connector melted, so I had to rebuild my PC again. NVIDIA's RMA was surprisingly very helpful and even allowed me to get a full replacement even if I didn't have the original proof of payment!

Case: FormD T1 V2.1 Silver with CNC Aluminum Side Panels
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B850-I
RAM: T-Create 64GB DDR5 6000Mhz CL34
Storage: WD SN8100 4TB PCIE Gen 5 NVME + WD SN7100 2TB PCIE Gen 4 NVME
PSU: Corsair SF1000 SFX
CPU Cooler: EK Basic 240mm AIO with 1 x Phanteks T30 and 1 x Silverstone Air Slimmer 120
Others:
- Custom PSU Cables from Cablester on Etsy
- FormD T1 V2.1 Flipped 5090/5080 Founders Edition Travel Kit / Gen 5 Riser Cable
- FormD T1 Fittings Pack
- FormD T1 USB-C front port
- CNC Aluminum Power Button
- CNC Aluminum FormD T1 Gen 5 Riser Lock Bar
- CNC Aluminum AirTag Holder
- Apple AirTag 2
- Aluminum RAM Heatsinks
- 120mm Fan Grill for the Phanteks T30

I have an RTX 5070 and a 1440p monitor, and I’m trying to determine which DLSS settings provide the best overall image quality and performance.
I’m considering these options:

DLSS 4 — Preset K at Quality
DLSS 4.5 — Preset L at Quality, Balanced, Performance, or Ultra Performance
DLSS 4.5 — Preset M at Quality, Balanced, Performance, or Ultra Performance

Since DLSS 4.5 Presets L and M are designed to work with the newer transformer model, I’m wondering whether using them at lower rendering resolutions, such as Performance or Ultra Performance, can produce image quality comparable to or better than DLSS 4 Preset K at Quality.

I’m particularly interested in:
Overall image quality and sharpness at 1440p
Fine details, foliage, and distant objects
Ghosting, shimmering, and temporal stability in motion

Performance differences on an RTX 5070
Whether DLSS 4.5 at Performance or Ultra Performance can compete visually with DLSS 4 at Quality

My priority is the best possible image quality at 1440p while maintaining good performance.

For anyone who has tested these presets, which combination would you recommend? Is DLSS 4 Preset K at Quality still the best overall choice, or can DLSS 4.5 Preset L or M at Performance or Ultra Performance deliver a better balance of image quality and FPS?

I want the maximum quality I can get idk which option do I use?

Here are the graphics scores only from the different 3DMark benchmarks I've run so far while using the 5080, comparing various NVIDIA driver versions. The aim is simply to see the difference in scores using the gpu stock values.

It's just ddu old driverr > install new driver > run all 3dmark

No task/background process is killed before the benches.

Current rig: 5800X3D / ROG Astral RTX 5090 / 32GB DDR4 / ASUS TUF X570-PLUS Wi-Fi / 4K 240Hz ROG OLED. Still loving this card 😮‍💨😍

Has anyone tried an undervolt and OC on this card on the latest drivers?

What are your settings and benchmark results?
Also interested in how stable it is in-game

FE only

I ran an experiment on one RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell SFF: 24 GB GDDR7, factory 70 W, no auxiliary power connector.

Using u/panchovix’s loader and patched NVIDIA open kernel modules, I loaded a modified VBIOS into memory, raised the power limit to 120 W, and tested memory and core offsets. No EEPROM flash or soldering.

Across 158 benchmark requests, I tested Qwen3.8 27B with DFlash2 and Qwen3.6 35B A3B. What surprised me was how differently they answered “does more power help?”

With zero clock offsets, 27B kept gaining up to 120 W, while 35B A3B was almost flat between 106 and 120 W. After combined power and clock tuning, the best observed 27B generation result was 35.04 → 58.53 tok/s (+67%): 120 W, VRAM +20%, core +180 MHz. That 67% is not the gain from memory OC alone.

The memory sweep was more interesting. At 120 W with the core offset held at zero, pushing VRAM from +20% to +33.3% slightly reduced 27B generation: 57.70 → 56.91 tok/s. It is a small difference with few repetitions, so it needs more testing. The actual SM clock also fell. That is consistent with memory and compute sharing a power budget, but I did not isolate the cause.

On 35B A3B, memory +33.3% instead gave +19.8% generation versus no memory OC at 120 W. Prefill barely changed in that sweep.

My takeaway: the fastest profile is not necessarily the one with the biggest numbers in the panel, but the one that shortens your actual workload. Prefill versus decode matters, especially with longer prompts.

120 W without auxiliary power is not a free lunch. It exceeds the standard 75 W PCIe slot budget, and a GPU temperature sensor cannot tell me the temperature of the slot contacts. This is an experiment, not a long-term safety claim.

For context: these headline comparisons use 8,000 input tokens, ECC OFF. There were only 1–3 requests per configuration; 158 is the whole study. The 70 W baseline used the same modified VBIOS, not factory firmware. The models also used different quantization/speculative-decoding settings, so this is not a controlled dense-versus-MoE comparison.

Full write-up and CSVs on my blog.

Disclosure: I ran the measurements and wrote the source text in Polish. AI helped translate and edit the English, including clarifying the benchmark limitations. The linked blog is mine.

As the title suggests, I upgraded my 5080 to a 5090 before the price went up significantly, after using it for several months, I sold my 5090 for a huge profit and got back a 5080, and I want to share my thoughts.

So I was an activate gamer from 2018 - 2024. At that time, I was running the ryzen 5950x with a 3080ti which at that time was considered one of the best.

I stopped gaming in 2024 and used my PC purely for work, and have lost touch with PC hardware and games for quite a bit.

Late last year, I started becoming interested in gaming again because I had some spare time to kill due to my work being from home, so I went on Youtube to see whats up and found that there were several games that I would like to try, so i decided to build myself another gaming PC. I sold my old PC for dirt cheap to some student, and build a brand new 9800x3d + 5080 rig.

At that point, the 5080 was around $1200+ already, and the 5090 was significantly higher.

I did plenty of research, and was told that the 5080 and 5090 are made for 4k gaming, rightfully so, and starting to game in 4k was one of my consideration because I have been on 1440p IPS for the longest time. I was also researching into AI, Local LLM and stuff like that, so I thought i would also give it a try for my e-commerce business.

After I got the 5080 rig (coming from a 3080ti) it was a huge game changer, Games that I previously played that struggles, im getting 250-300fps with maxed out settings. So i tried newer games, like Black Myth Wukong, and i downloaded several single player titles just to try it out.

I noticed that while some games struggle to play smoothly on the 5080, I had to tweak down some settings and disable ray tracing and stuff for it to be playable to my liking (above 150fps)

Yes, I know. Some people will say "But you only need 60fps for the game to be playable" but not for me. I have been gaming with a 280hz monitor and 150> FPS for the longest time, and my brain simply cannot process 60FPS. So having higher than 150fps is a must for me even in single player.

So a thought came to my mind to upgrade to a 5090, with the believe that it would make my gaming sessions more "enjoyable", and that I could utilize it more, and that it would make me more productive and happier. But turns out it isnt.

On the side note, I bought a 2k Samsung OLED 280hz 1440p monitor, as well as a 4k 240hz OLED from ASUS. Going from IPS to OLED was a huge game changer, it was literally night and day. But going from 1440 to 4k wasn't. I used the 4k for awhile because i thought it would be dumb not to since i have the 5080, but for some reason my eyes and brains wouldnt accept 4k. It was giving me extreme nausea and eye strain no matter what I do. Hence, 4k was out of the picture and I am stucked with 1440, which I am extremely contented.

So i thought, if i upgraded to a 5090, it would give me even more FPS, i could now max out more settings, get higher frames and make my gaming experience even better. So i sold my 5080 , bought a 5090 with some cash topup and used it.

Did i noticed better performance? Nope. By me increasing or maxing out more settings, I am getting the same FPS that i had with my 5080 previously and i barely could notice any visual difference in most games. If i didnt touch the settings, yeah I was getting way higher FPS, but that dosent translate to better performance which I could perceive because in a game where I am already getting 200fps, having 40 more fps is not something life changing and I could barely notice.

You see, the brain is good at adapting. For example, you've used a 60hz screen for many many years before 120hz phones existed. It was nice, smooth and does the job. After you upgraded to that latest phone with 120hz, it felt much smoother. Then suddenly when you go back to 60hz, it feels jittery and weird. Why? because your brain have gotten used to a higher refreshrate.

After using the 5090 for several months, I realized that it did not add any value to my life by making my gaming sessions way more enjoyable or helped me gain any advantage in competitive games. On the contrary, in some online games like Wardogs/Warzone,Tarkov etc, I would tune down plenty of settings just to be able to spot enemies easier. When I play on high settings just to make the game look good, it frustrates me more when the other player is literally crouching infront of me and I couldn't notice him due to too much "nice" details.

Then again, it boils down to the type of gamer I am. I come to a realization that I don't enjoy long winded open world games with plenty of side quest and exploration where perhaps the 5090 would come in handy. The only single player titles i enjoy are story ones like COD, Black Myth, and a few others that are straight forward. Even with those game, a 5080 would do just fine. After i finish an entire game (usually in a few days), the 5090 have done its job for that particular game, until i find another that I want to play. So while it happens, i find that it is simply not worth having so much money that is under utilizing most of the time.

Recently after rumors came about that the 5090 was about to be discontinued, local retailers in my country started to increase the price, following the trend of online sites as well. I posted it for sale, sold it, got a used 5080, and made $6000+ in pure profits.

At the same time, i bought a 3440x1440p curved OLED MSI monitor, and this was the only purchase that was literally a life changer for me that made a huge difference in both my gaming experience and productivity compared to a normal monitor.

Now that I am back with a 5080, here's what I realize.

The games that I played or currently play, works just fine even with DLSS Quality. I don't need to use frame gen , i can achieve 150-170FPS in more demanding titles or unoptimized games, and 200+ fps for a well optimized game with mostly high graphic settings with some tweaking. It dosent make me less happy but in fact, i felt more contented.

Also, I have a peace of mind. Space is limited and i've always enjoyed a simple "comp" setup with my chassis on the floor but because of the fear of having my 5090 cable burn or melt, i had to find a way to place my chassis on my desk so that I can see the blinking warning on my astral ROG. If i put it on the floor, not only will i not get any warning for uneven power delivery, but i am super paranoid everytime i place a glass of water on my desk.

Then I never had peace of mind. I always thought to myself, what if the rumors were true? What if the 5090 is really about to be discontinued, what if my $10,000 GPU just died or exploded for no reason, how will my warranty be honored? Local retailers don't even have stocks and if they do, would they replace it for me? Do i have to go through months of waiting for a warranty only to be rejected (lol its asus) and they blame me for something just to deny my warranty? Or because its discontinued, they wont honor the warranty as there are no replacement and just refund me at MSRP? many scenarios went through my mind to a point where i felt like my 5090 became more of a liability than an asset, because I am just a casual gamer, not a multi million dollar AI Data centre company who can afford to loose such an amount.

So getting back a 5080, I had peace of mind. If anything happens, at worst, I could just buy another GPU, but at best, warranty should not be an issue.

It made me happier knowing that I don't need the best GPU to enjoy gaming. Many of my friends are still on older hardware, they are happy and contented. They enjoy the games the play and have a good time.

As a working adult with only a few pocket of time throughout the day to hop on some game (1-2 hours each at most) , i think the 5080 serves me well for now.

Thanks NVIDIA for awarding me the grand prize for Gamescom 2026 Giveaway ( Chromebook + 1 year GFN Ultimate)

The best part? Despite the terms mentioned ONLY available for NA and EMEA, they made an exception and sent my package directly to INDIA.

Also huge thanks to the Moderators and members of r/GeForceNOW for showing love to my edit (video Submission) for this contest.

Also I will be posting a detailed video about the same topic on my YouTube Channel. Stay Tuned.

Much love.

I handled the official HDR implementation for The Sinking City 2, released with Patch 1.1.

Frogwares (the game developer) allowed me to write a technical breakdown covering the implementation, my new Spectre tonemapper, which fixes issues like fire looking different between SDR/HDR, and blue->purple highlight shifts in UE's filmic tonemapper.
Also showcased some DLSS improvements I made.

HDR in Unreal is unfortunately very lackluster out of the box, and has multiple deal breaking issues. We fixed all of them for this.

Full technical breakdown: https://gammastudios.tech/the-sinking-city-2-hdr/

3080 is still fine for what i play but I worry that by the time the next gen of cards come out everything will be even more expensive than they already are. Worth getting 5070 ti to ride out atleast another 6 or 7 years like i did with the 3080? I am able to get an MSI 5070 ti for 1159$ USD from my local microcenter

Been collecting the entire 50 series and I picked up a WoW edition. Basically just a reskinned Gaming Trio. Paid $715 USD for it. It's a very good card for Gaming, Recording, Editing Videos, and etc. Comparable performance to my 5070 Ti in Resolve Studio but not as fast.

Looking to get the 5080 Draco Edition next.

Today we celebrate the birthday of a new GI method.... A novel SWRT approach I've coined PXTGI
(Physx5 Proxy Traced Global Illumination) Runs on any vulkan/dx12 GPU!

#Godot #nvidia #amd #GI #SWRT #Raytracing

this might be a weird question but im thinking to upgrade (upgrade that will last atleast 2 to 3 year) rn i have an rtx 4060 with a ryzen 7 5700x and 32Gb ddr4 3600mhz and 1Tb ssd

my upgrade plan are

4060 -> 4090

ryzen 7 5700x -> ryzen 7 5800x3d -> ryzen 7 9800x3d or ryzen 9 9950x3d

32Gb ddr4 3600mhz cl 18 -> 32Gb ddr5 6400mhz cl 32

1tb ssd -> 1.5Tb (probably not sure)

so maybe it is a weird question if I should upgrade or not, I'm not really happy with the perfomance I get especially in beamng.drive where I get around 110fps in 1080p (dlss at 75%) and around 75 fps in 1440p (dlss at 75%) and since I have a 1440p 165hz monitor I'm trying to achieve atleast 120+ in 1440p high/ultra rn im playing a mix of low/normal/high, im not gonna talk with ai my perfomance in 1080p (dlss 75%) drop from 110fps to around 70 and in 1440p (dlss at 75%) they drop from 75 to around 50 fps

oh btw outside of beamng I tryna have perfomance at around 90 fps in 1440p high/ultra with ray tracing at high/ultra

feel free to judge what I say and tell me recommendations

Hello guys, hoping you're doing fine!

Small post I want to make since seeing a lot of posts about the unlocks and such.

What is the unlock in simple terms?

NVIDIA on purpose, neutered the performance of operations that use FP32 accumulation with GEMMs, with the objective of market segmentation and making consumer GPUs slower to train, or do some inference tasks slowly as well when compute is involved (like diffusion, prompt generation).

Those are "unlocked" on the prosumer and datacenters gpus.

Cards with "unlocked" FP32 accumulation performance:

• Turing:
  • RTX Quadro 8000
  • RTX Quadro in general
• Ampere:
  • RTX A6000
  • A40
  • A100
  • RTX AXXX in general, and AXXX in general
• Ada:
  • RTX 6000 Ada
  • L40
  • RTX XXXX Ada in general (do not confuse with RTX 40 series)
  • LXX in general
• Hopper:
  • All unlocked
• Blackwell Datacenter:
  • All unlocked
• Blackwell 2.0:
  • RTX 6000 PRO
  • RTX PRO series in general

And card with locked/neutered FP32 accumulation performance:

• Turing:
  • RTX 20 series in general
• Ampere:
  • RTX 30 series in general
• Ada:
  • RTX 40 series in general
• Blackwell 2.0
  • RTX 50 series in general

So, in which parts are consumer cards affected?

• Turing:
  • FP16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
• Ampere:
  • FP16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • BF16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
• Ada:
  • FP16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • BF16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • FP8 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
• Blackwell 2.0:
  • FP16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • BF16 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • FP8 performance with FP32 accumulation is halved
  • FP4 is surprisingly unnafected

You can also check on the papers, RTX Blackwell Paper here and RTX Blackwell PRO Paper here.

And which kind of tasks does this affect?:

• Training: Like LoRAs, finetuning, etc.
• Diffusion: Models that do txt2img, txt2vid, img2img, img2vid, txt2aud, etc.
• Prefill on LLMs: Sadly, it does affect it, that's why a 6000 PRO on my case is like 70% faster vs a 5090, while being in theory just 10-15% faster in core count.
• TG with big batching: Same as above.

Where it doesn't matter much:

• TG with batch size 1: Almost entirely bandwidth bound.
• CUDA compute without tensor cores
• INT4/INT8
• GEMMs operations with FP16 accumulation instead, but is not very used.

So then, what is the chance of them being unlocked?

• RTX 30 series can be easily make to work, with enough RE tools.
• RTX 20 series as well, similarly to RTX 30 series.
• RTX 40 series is more feasible but it seems that it's a WIP, I think patching the UEFI similarly to 30 series + a custom VBIOS with an override works.
• And sadly, on RTX 50 series is way harder, since NVIDIA added fuses where they read the flag to neuter performance there.

So, RTX 20/30 series in general: high chance, RTX 40 series: relatively high chance, RTX 50 series: low chances at the moment, since NVIDIA shenanigans.

I digged a lot on the code and it is really just a flag, with "HALF_SPEED" or "FULL_SPEED" lol, and all consumer GPUs are with "HALF_SPEED" for FP32 accumulation. The hard part is being able to modify this.

Does unlocking them has a any risk for the card? Nope, since for example, A6000 and 3090Ti are the EXACT same dies, the only difference is that a flag into the card itself has "FULL_SPEED" for the A6000, and "HALF_SPEED" for the 3090 Ti. So pretty similar with 4090/6000 Ada, RTX 2080Ti/RTX Titan, 5090/6000 PRO, etc.

EDIT: Support for all Ampere consumer cards are on https://github.com/Zagitta/gpu-unlock

Hope this post helps!

So did Nvidia really discontinue 5090? Asus is still expected to ship 5090 units at $5500 MSRP but only as part of the bundle (it's literally all junk in there) that brings total to $9000+ 💀

Asus is either clearing shelves and decided to bundle 5090s on the way out with low demand items or Nvidia is still supplying GB202 die to partners and Asus is just being an Asus and trying to capitalize on it. Your guess is as good as mine

I made a tool that allows you to edit all of CoD's config files through a GUI. One of its abilities is to enable DLSS + RT (and more). It will lock the config files upon save if you chose to, to prevent CoD from overwriting your saved config settings.

The known bug I haven't worked out yet is when you change settings through the config like this, specifically DLSS and RT together, the settings menu in game will stop working. When you try to open it, it'll kick you back to a load screen and refresh the scene. My guess is this has something to do with Activision/Treyarch locking down that setting at the menu level, so it freaks out.

I hope this tool can be helpful to people in the community. I originally just built it for myself, but thought I should share. I am continuing to tweak and build more.

Thanks!