It seems that NVIDIA isn’t trying very hard to achieve higher power efficiency on the higher-end GPUs. The high-end RTX 40 cards already consume whopping hundreds of watts but the RTX 50 cards will be even hungrier.
RTX 5090 will supposedly need 600W while other RTX 50 cards will need more power than their predecessors
NVIDIA’s big jump in power consumption from RTX 30 to RTX 40 series was something we haven’t seen from the company in the previous generations, particularly the flagship card RTX 4090. It’s true that the RTX 4060 and 4070 are highly power-efficient but the RTX 4080 Super and 4090 consume over 300 and 400 watts respectively. According to a new rumor, the next-gen Blackwell flagship GPU will add a significant TDP increase.
The leak comes from the popular leaker @kopite7kimi who said that the upcoming GeForce cards of the Blackwell series will have some increase in power consumption, particularly the higher-end cards. When asked whether the RTX 5090 will consume 550W, he said it will be even more. One user asked whether the RTX 5090 would consume 600W, and Kopite replied in the affirmative. That’s an incredible 33% TDP increase over the RTX 4090, which will require users to use at least a 1200W PSU assuming they are using an overclockable high-end AMD or Intel processor.
Furthermore, he confirms that the RTX 5080 will consume 400W, which is 80W higher than the TDP of RTX 4080 and its Super edition. He also confirmed that the RTX 5070 will consume over 220W, possibly 250W, which is higher than the TDP of RTX 4070 and 4070 Super Edition.
| RTX 40 series | RTX 50 series |
| RTX 4090: 450W | RTX 5090: 600W |
| RTX 4080/Super: 320W | RTX 5080: 400W |
| RTX 4070/Super: 200/220W | RTX 5070: 220+W |
While NVIDIA is expected to offer significant generational uplifts with the Blackwell GPUs, the power consumption will also increase drastically. This doesn’t mean that every game will push these GPUs to 100% usage but it’s possible that in some cases, the GPUs may touch their max TDPs. Nonetheless, even if they don’t, they will still consume more power if we go by the rumor.
The NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 50 series GPUs are expected to launch at CES 2025, which is going to be held in January. NVIDIA will likely start with the launch of its flagship and other high-end offerings, followed by mid-range and budget GPUs after some gap in 2025.
