Around Christmas time, Ventiva launched its Ionic Cooling Engine (ICE), the latest in what has been an unexpectedly disappointing industry of fanless cooling solutions for laptops. But with Ventiva, there’s a key difference: It has a customer. Ventiva, Intel, and Dell have collaborated on a proof-of-concept laptop that the company is showing off here at the CES show in Las Vegas. Inside is Ventiva’s ICE, which uses electrohydrodynamic airflow to strip about 25 watts’ worth of heat from a Core Ultra 200 (Lunar Lake) laptop — and essentially silently, to boot. To be fair, Dell hasn’t formally committed to shipping the unnamed laptop, though it casually placed Ventiva’s name on its concept laptop, something that you don’t often see. Intel even endorsed the technology in its CES materials. Carl Schlachte, Ventiva’s chief executive, describes the Ventiva technology this way: In a typical laptop, a heat pipe passively moves heat via conduction from the PC’s core logic out to near the external vents, where it radiates into the air. A fan or blower kicks in under load, sucking cool air from vents underneath the laptop. The fans then blow the warmed air outside the laptop. It’s an effective solution, but one that can be noisy and somewhat distracting if not well engineered. How Ventiva’s ICE technology works Ventiva’s ICE doesn’t use fans, rendering it virtually silent. Instead, the technology ionizes the air passing through. A closeup of the ICE and its charging wire.Mark Hachman / IDG Each ICE looks a bit like a PCI Express slot, laid horizontally, but open on both ends. Running down the middle of the ICE, horizontally, is a tiny, charged wire. The ICE applies a charge, grabbing electrons from air molecules that flow through the ICE and creating a dense collection of positively-charged ions that are repelled from the positively-charged wire. As they’re pushed away, the ions bump into other, neutrally charged air molecules, pushing the mass of air away and creating airflow. The amount of air movement (and thus heat dissipation) depends on both the size of the ICE as well as the current applied. In a display case, Schlachte showed off a family of different-sized ICEs, nothing more than a few inches. When asked, Schlachte said that the largest can move a maximum of about one cubic foot of air per minute (1 cfm), but that it was largely dependent upon the current applied. ICEs can be made in different sizes, though it’s the charge applied to the wire that seems to have the most effect.Mark Hachman / IDG It’s a different approach than companies like Frore or xMEMS have used. Those companies applied charge to what is essentially a vibrating membrane, using that as means to move air and dissipate heat. Form customizing laptops to working with Intel For now, Schlachte said that Ventiva is focused on stripping heat from premium, thin-and-light notebooks at $1,000 or above. Dell’s unnamed laptop, a “gorgeous design,” he said, was to his knowledge “the thinnest it’s ever done.” Ventiva’s ICE was under development for several years, but the company wasn’t aggressively marketing it as a product. “We went to LA,” Schlachte said. “We were out with the laptop guys first before we talked. We weren’t even trying to get a design win. We’re like, look, here’s what we’re doing, right? We’re thermal people. They’re thermal people. There is kind of a weird brotherhood, a weird, nerdy brotherhood. And then they picked up the phone, called Intel, and Intel called us.” If you look closely, you can see the small “ICE” labels where the air is pushed out of this Dell prototype. Also note the Ventiva reference at the very top.Mark Hachman / IDG Schlachte said that company engineers would just go into a local Best Buy, buy an off-the-shelf laptop, retrofit it, and then take it with them to executives at major laptop companies. “And eventually, they would ask me, how soon can I get one of these in my laptop, and I’d say, ‘Here you go.`” Intel, meanwhile, was on the hunt for an improved cooling solution. According to Schlachte, Intel was frustrated by an unsuccessful co-engineering effort with a competitor, and heard through its network of partners about Ventiva. Intel, for its part, said this week that it’s potentially considering Ventiva’s ICE cooling solution as part of its Evo program. Intel representatives didn’t reply to a request for comment by press time. This is how Ventiva could arrange the ICEs to create an (eventual) 40W cooling solution.Mark Hachman / IDG Dust and ozone: Ventiva’s critics say its tech has risks In just a few weeks, Ventiva’s ICE solution has attracted some scrutiny and some critics. For one, the ICE solution essentially is creating ozone (O3), which occurs naturally, and beneficially, in the atmosphere — the “ozone layer” — via a plasma field. Ozone can be mildly harmful when breathed in large enough quantities, however, potentially causing irritation to mucus membranes in the nose and mouth. When you think about how Ventiva’s ICEs emit ozone, and there can be several in a single laptop, and they could be constantly emitting ozone just inches from your lungs. Well, the worries don’t seem unrealistic. A Ventiva solution that could remove 40W of heat from a laptop used five ICE devices, according to a physical model Ventiva showed. Ventiva showed PCWorld a draft paper that addresses the issue via a third-party testing lab. Acceptable ozone concentrations vary (the EPA allows 0.080 parts per million, or ppm; OSHA permits 0.100; the FDA allows 0.050 ppm). According to Ventiva’s findings, the ozone emitted moves in all directions, but is concentrated in the direction of the exhaust. At that angle, at 900mm (35 inches or just under three feet) the ozone exposure would be 50 parts per billion, or 0.05 ppm, with 0.5W of charge placed on the wire, which is close to government limits. (Ventiva also says that since ozone is unstable, it will dissipate quickly at a further distance and won’t be present when the ICE is turned off.) To play it safe, Ventiva developed what is essentially a catalytic converter: applying manganese dioxide. The compound can be applied to heat sinks or their thermal fins, at the discretion of the laptop maker. According to the company’s third-party testing, it’s quite effective. Ventiva Schlachte said, however, that the ozone may be detectable by those with sharp noses. He said that some noses can detect ozone at 30 parts per billion. “So there is a chance; we never deny it,” he said. “We don’t shy away from it.” The other risk is one all laptop makers face: Dust or other airborne crud like cat dander. In this, Schlachte shrugs his shoulders. “So I guess the first thing I should say is, nobody has conquered dust, including us,” Schlachte said. “Anybody who tells you they’re immune, impervious, that kind of thing — it’s just not true.” Traditional blowers can get coated with dust, or clogged with hair, enough that they slow down or can stop working. Ventiva can’t do anything about intakes getting clogged with gunk, but he said that the ICE has a secret capability: “It’s a pretty good air sensor,” he said. Schlachte wouldn’t quite commit to saying that the ICE can act like an air quality sensor, detecting particles as they fly though the air, but almost. “The reason I’m being little cautious around on this is that there is some work being done around this, that, that’ll probably get announced in the future,” he said. But that particle information can be handed over to the laptop’s internal control logic, which can decide what it can do from there. Here, Ventiva’s playing it a bit cagey. Moving ahead Right now, Ventiva is working with a single-source supplier, though it may add a second soon. That all means that Ventiva’s impact will be modest, for now. It doesn’t have the capacity to go beyond one or two laptop models, Schlachte said. Still, it’s a step forward. Laptop makers and consumers alike value passive cooling, because it can be close to or totally silent. But they also want a cooling solution powerful enough that it can run their laptop at top speeds. Ventiva hopes to provide customers with the best of both worlds. Editor’s note: This article originally published on January 8, 2025, but was updated to include our video interview with Dell’s Travis North. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros High-quality workmanship and aluminum top plate Kailh-Box V2 Red switch with a pleasant typing feel Hot-swap function and stable stabilizer design Comprehensive sound insulation for quieter typing Three connection modes (2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 5.1, and USB-C) Dedicated volume control Cons Only average battery life with RGB lighting Eye-catching design not suitable for everyone No palm rest Our Verdict The Cooler Master MK770 keyboard impresses with its modern hybrid design, high-quality workmanship, and flexibility, which makes it interesting for both gamers and frequent typists. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today With its hybrid design, the Cooler Master MK770 is aimed at gamers and professionals who value flexibility and high build quality. It offers three connection modes: 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 5.1, and USB-C cable. Combined with an aluminum surface, customizable RGB lighting, and the ability to flexibly use all possible switches thanks to hot-swap, it makes a strong impression on paper. Cooler Master also includes features such as integrated sound insulation for quieter typing and an innovative stabilizer design. But do the extensive features and the price of around $119 justify the investment? Further reading: The one mechanical keyboard feature I can’t live without Cooler Master MK770: Design and workmanship The design of the Cooler Master MK770 immediately catches the eye. The tested version in the grey-black color scheme combines subtle tones with an aluminum surface that looks robust and high-quality. A special highlight is the double sound insulation inside the keyboard, which has been realized in combination with a genuine gasket-mount design. This design uses flexible seals between the aluminum top plate and the housing, which not only acoustically dampens keystrokes, but also significantly reduces mechanical vibrations. In contrast to a pure TKL layout, the MK770 offers a 96 percent layout, which is more compact than a full layout but still integrates a numeric keypad. This makes the keyboard suitable both for gamers who need more space on their desk and for users who do not want to do without the functionality of a numeric keypad. Friedrich Stiemer A special highlight is the double sound insulation inside the keyboard, which has been realized in combination with a genuine gasket-mount design. This design uses flexible seals between the aluminum top plate and the housing, which not only acoustically dampens keystrokes, but also significantly reduces mechanical vibrations. Together with Poron foam and a silicone damping mat, this ensures a pleasantly muffled and quiet typing noise. This design sets the MK770 noticeably apart from many competitor models, as it offers exemplary feedback both acoustically and haptically. The aluminum top plate not only gives the keyboard stability, but also ensures a pleasant feel. Unlike the US version, however, our tested variant does not come with robust PBT double-shot keycaps, but only with conventional ABS keycaps, which unfortunately tend to wear out and become shiny more quickly. This slightly reduces both the feel and the acoustics of the keyboard, as the keystrokes sound somewhat hollow and less high-quality. Nevertheless, the keycaps offer special symbols for MacOS use, making the MK770 an attractive choice not only for Windows users but also for Mac users. Unfortunately, Cooler Master does not include a palm rest. Friedrich Stiemer Cooler Master MK770: Technology and features The tested version of the Cooler Master MK770 is equipped with Kailh Box V2 Red switches, which are known for their linear typing feel. The box architecture of the switches is characterized by additional protection against dust and moisture, which significantly increases their durability. With an actuation travel of 1.8 and a total stroke depth of 3.6 millimeters, the switches trigger particularly quickly and precisely, which is ideal for competitive gaming where every millisecond counts. The actuation point is only 45 grams, resulting in easy and fatigue-free typing. The linear characteristic of the box switches ensures smooth, jerk-free feedback, but also harbors weaknesses. Compared to tactile switches, there is no perceptible trigger signal, which could tempt beginners to make unintentional incorrect entries. Nevertheless, the switch remains a recommendable choice for gamers and frequent typists due to its high stability and linear smoothness. Friedrich Stiemer Another highlight is the newly developed stabilizer design, which ensures consistent keystrokes for larger keys such as the space bar, Shift key, or Enter key. These so-called stabilizers consist of additional metal brackets that are installed on the side of the keys and distribute the movement more evenly. The mechanism on the Cooler Master MK770 has been optimized to minimize rattling noises and make the keys quieter. As a result, the keystrokes not only feel more precise, but also appear more stable and less spongy. This improvement is particularly noticeable during fast typing sequences and intensive gaming sessions, where the keystrokes are smoother and more pleasant. This is a clear advantage for frequent typists, as the fingers are not strained by unwanted vibrations or unevenness. The hot-swap function allows the switches to be replaced without soldering, which makes the keyboard interesting for enthusiasts who want to try out different switch types or replace worn switches. The Cooler Master MK770 is compatible with 3-pin and 5-pin switches, offering a wide range of options. This flexibility makes it particularly attractive for users who want to customize their keyboard to individual preferences or upgrade the switches in the long term. This gives the Cooler Master MK770 a high degree of customization. Friedrich Stiemer Cooler Master MK770: Gaming performance in practice In everyday gaming, the Cooler Master MK770 shows why it is a serious option for competitive gamers. The Kailh-Box V2 Red switches with their actuation pressure of 45 grams and fast trigger characteristics deliver exactly what is needed for hectic shooter matches or MOBA tournaments like precise inputs and fast reactions. Especially in games such as Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, the keyboard shows what it can do–whether it’s quickly switching weapons or controlled movements in close combat. The linear stroke enables fluid input without you having to worry about unintentional keystrokes. Friedrich Stiemer The 2.4 GHz wireless mode was absolutely convincing in the test. Even in action-packed multiplayer games, latency was barely noticeable. No input lag, no stuttering–the keyboard executes commands without delay and brings the feeling of a wired connection to the wireless setup. The range is impressive, meaning that setups further away (e.g. on the sofa) are also possible. Bluetooth 5.1 offers more flexibility, but is more suitable for cozy rounds of Civilization VI or office use, as slight delays are noticeable here. The double sound insulation and optimized stabilizer design contribute significantly to the gaming experience. There is hardly any rattling or wobbling when pressing larger keys–the keystrokes feel full and precise. During intensive typing or fast, repetitive inputs, the acoustics remain pleasantly muted, so the Cooler Master MK770 does well in quieter environments. This overall picture of performance and comfort makes the MK770 a reliable companion for gamers and frequent typists alike. Friedrich Stiemer Cooler Master MK770: Battery life and scope of delivery With its three connection modes, the Cooler Master MK770 is extremely flexible. The 2.4 GHz wireless mode impresses with its low latency, while Bluetooth 5.1 enables a versatile connection to various devices such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones. The USB-C cable is not only used for data transfer, but also for charging the 4000 mAh battery, which delivers solid results in practice. With the RGB lighting set to maximum brightness, the keyboard achieves a runtime of around 21 hours. If you reduce the lighting or switch it off completely, the battery life increases significantly and can reach values of up to 165 hours. With the factory setting of the lighting, which uses a medium brightness, we achieved around 32 hours of continuous use in our tests. These values are satisfactory for a wireless gaming keyboard, even if they’re not top class. Friedrich Stiemer The RGB lighting offers 16.8 million colors and numerous effects that can be adjusted via the Cooler Master software or key combinations. The keyboard also has a dedicated volume control in the top right-hand corner. Cooler Master includes a keycap and switch puller, a USB adapter for the 2.4 GHz dongle, and the aforementioned USB cable. Friedrich Stiemer Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros By far the fastest gaming performance ever, even ray traced DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation makes games so snappy and smooth, they feel like new — it’s truly game-changing Huge 32GB of GDDR7 with tons of bandwidth Tightly engineered Founders Edition model somehow squeezes into a fairly quiet two-slot design Cons Bro, it’s $2,000 $500 premium over 4090 Significant power increase requires 1,000W power supply GPU temp hits 84 degrees Celsius under load Our Verdict Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 is the most brutally fast graphics card ever introduced, augmented by new DLSS 4 technology that feels like magic. But you pay dearly for it, and it feels like this GPU was designed more for AI researchers than PC gamers. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The wait is finally over. The long-awaited GeForce RTX 5090 lands on store shelves in January — and friends, the flagship graphics card for Nvidia’s new “Blackwell” architecture is an absolute monster. It should be for $2,000, of course. While the RTX 5090’s leap in raw gaming performance isn’t anywhere as massive as the 4090’s was over its predecessor, it blows the pants off any GPU we’ve ever seen before, with no notable flaws in its technical configuration. But while raw gaming performance is welcome, I suspect that the GeForce RTX 50-series will live or die on the back of DLSS 4, a new generation of Nvidia’s vaunted AI-powered performance-boosting technologies. A lot of Blackwell’s improvements were focused on Nvidia’s AI tensor cores, and Blackwell was designed hand-in-hand to optimize DLSS 4. And hot damn, friends. Based on our early playtime, DLSS 4’s new Multi Frame Generation AI technology feels like black magic, utterly changing the way games feel and respond to your inputs. It’s amazing, full stop. Check out our embedded video review below for an in-depth analysis of every benchmark we ran and plenty of additional experiential information. This written review will focus on key things would-be RTX 5090 buyers need to know before slapping down $2,000 for the most badass graphics card ever built. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is badass at everything When we covered (and then analyzed!) the specifications for Nvidia’s initial GeForce RTX 50-series lineup, one thing jumped out: The GeForce RTX 5090 was the clear crown jewel, designed with virtually no technical flaws. That bears out in our testing. With 33 percent more CUDA cores than the RTX 4090, new RT and tensor AI cores, and more raw power being pumped through its digital veins, there was never any doubt the 5090 would whup on its predecessor in gaming. (Much more on that in the next section.) Its ginormous 32GB of bleeding-edge GDDR7 memory, built with a wide 512-bit bus, will be able to tackle any gaming task you throw at it, regardless of resolution. But the RTX 5090 is more than just a gaming behemoth. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry We live in an era where GPUs do serious work on AI tasks now, not just gaming. Nvidia optimized its Blackwell architecture to excel at AI workloads, while the RTX 5090’s unrivaled memory configuration can hold much larger AI models than any prior GPU. The results in Procyon’s AI Text Generation benchmark are nothing short of sparkling. In the “worst case” scenario, with the Phi 3.5 large language model, the RTX 5090 is about 19 percent faster than the 4090; in the best case scenario, Meta’s Llama 3.1, performance jumped 32 percent. AI researchers and engineers will be scrambling to pick this up. The GeForce RTX 5090 is also a content creation powerhouse. It houses an additional media encoding engine, bringing its total up to three, while the massive memory pool helps with the creation and editing of complex projects. We were only able to run a couple of Adobe benchmarks from Puget Systems’ excellent PugetBench for this initial review. All modern high-end GPUs offer roughly the same performance in Photoshop (no surprise there), but the RTX 5090 is 8 percent faster than the 4090 in Premiere Pro. Expect that margin to jump with more GPU-centric creation software, like DaVinci Resolve, or if your workloads utilize ray tracing or can tap into Nvidia’s excellent DLSS technologies. There’s a reason we’re talking about this first: The GeForce RTX 5090 is much more than just a gaming card, like a more amplified version of the 4090 before it. People who use their PCs for real work will be clamoring for this monster GeForce GPU to make real money using it. The RTX 4090 has sold for closer to $2,500 than its $1,600 suggested price for years now, and I expect the demand will be even stronger for the titanic 5090 with its fast, massive memory pool and AI optimizations. This will sell lot hotcakes — yes, even at $1,999, which I suspect will look like an absolute steal a few months from now. But if you are able to snag one, you’ll have your hands on by far the fastest gaming GPU of all time. Onto the fun stuff. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 gaming benchmarks: Brutally fast The GeForce RTX 4090 stood unopposed as the ultimate gaming GPU since the moment it launched. No longer. The new Blackwell generation uses the same underlying TSMC 4N process technology as the RTX 40-series, so Nvidia couldn’t squeeze easy improvements there. Instead, the company overhauled the RTX 5090’s instruction pipeline, endowed it with 33 percent more CUDA cores, and pushed it to a staggering 575W TGP, up from the 4090’s 450W. Blackwell also introduced a new generation of RT and AI cores. Add it all up and the RTX 5090 is an unparalleled gaming beast — though the effects hit different depending on whether or not you’re using RTX features like ray tracing and DLSS. Our gaming benchmark suite tests titles utilizing a variety of different game engines, to try to get a well-rounded view of performance. We’ve decided to focus on 4K gaming performance given this $2,000 graphics card’s might. In games that don’t use ray tracing or DLSS, simply brute force graphics rendering, the RTX 5090 isn’t much more than a mild generational performance upgrade. It runs an average of 27 percent faster in those games — but the splits swing wildly depending on the game: Cyberpunk 2077 is 50 percent faster, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is 32 percent faster, and Rainbox Six Siege is 28 percent faster, but Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 only pick up 15 and 12 percent more performance, respectively. Performance results are less of a yo-yo once you flip on ray tracing, DLSS upscaling (not Frame Generation), or some mix of the two. Black Myth Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, and Returnal all run ~30 percent faster on the RTX 5090 versus the 4090, while F1 24 leapt up 40 percent. Nvidia invested heavily engineering work into its ray tracing and tensor cores this generation, and it shows. You should not pick up the RTX 5090 if you plan on ignoring ray tracing and DLSS in games (unless you plan on using it for work, of course). But sweet holy moly, you shouldn’t ignore DLSS 4 anyway. DLSS 4 is a literal game-changer Much like DLSS, DLSS 2, and DLSS 3 before it, the new DLSS 4 generation is an absolute game-changer. Nvidia’s boundary-pushing AI tech continues to look better, run faster, and now feel smoother. It’s insane. Nvidia made two monumental changes to DLSS to coincide with the RTX 50-series release. First, all DLSS games will be switching to a new “Transformer” model from the older “Convolutional Neural Network” behind the scenes, on all RTX GPUs going back to the 20-series. With over 75 games and apps scheduled to support DLSS 4 on the day of the RTX 5090’s launch, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to put your fancy new hardware to work. More crucially for the RTX 5090 (and future 50-series offerings), DLSS 4 adds a new Multi Frame Generation technology, building upon the success of DLSS 3 Frame Gen. While DLSS 3 uses tensor cores to insert a single AI-generated frame between GPU-rendered frames, supercharging performance, MFG inserts three AI frames between each GPU-rendered frame (which itself may only be rendering an image at quarter resolution, then using DLSS Super Resolution to upscale that to fit your screen). It’s AI all the way down, just like we predicted. As someone who is sensitive to latency, I was skeptical going in. But friends, DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation feels fantastic in our limited playtesting. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry We only pulled benchmark numbers for Cyberpunk 2077 using the RT Overdrive preset and 1.7x DLSS scaling. Flipping on MFG increases the frame rate over the 5090 with DLSS 3 by a whopping 91 percent, hitting a blistering 249 frames per second. Without any sort of Frame Generation on, the game runs at 71fps; enabling DLSS 4 MFG lets it run an absolutely staggering 251 percent faster. Insanity. And it feels smoother than silk with Nvidia Reflex turned on. Online forums have been broiled in debate since DLSS 4’s announcement: Do the AI frames really count as a frame rate increase, since you’re only affecting the input on 1/4 of frames rendered by the GPU, or is it more like an advanced motion-smoothing technology? I lean towards the latter, but either way: DLSS 4 MFG makes games look and feel so much better, and that’s the important part. PCWorld video guru Adam Patrick Murray, who ran our benchmarks, normally sits on a couch during gaming sessions, using a small form-factor PC connected to a television. He never bothered turning on DLSS 3 Frame Gen; he felt the occasional visual glitches hurt more than the extra performance helped in that scenario. But he’s a big DLSS 4 MFG believer. “You can absolutely feel the difference now,” he told me, and he turned it on wherever possible during playtesting. PCWorld contributor Will Smith, who is working on a deeper dive into DLSS 4, delivers even stronger praise: He reports that turning on DLSS 4 makes Star Wars Outlaws, a fun game prone to performance concerns, feel just as good as the legendary Doom 2016, which many gamers consider the paragon of fast-action shooters. “It’s like a whole new game,” he said. Cyberpunk 2077 also looked and felt smoother than ever, though to be fair, that game already handled really well. Regardless of whether you consider AI frames to boost frame rates or smooth out motion, the end result is a masterpiece in action. Odd visual glitches seem to happen much less often now — though pumping out ray-traced Cyberpunk scenes at 249 frames per second gives your eyes much less time to try to notice them, as well. I was concerned about added latency but Will and Adam report that everything feels snappy and even better than usual, though they counsel that you’ll want native in-game frame rates to hit close to 50- to 60fps before turning on MFG, or the latency can start to feel a little weird. That shouldn’t be a problem with the RTX 5090. And that’s with using the standard version of Nvidia’s latency-reducing Reflex technology, which is needed to counter the latency introduced by adding AI frames that don’t respond to user input. The newer, more complex and performant Reflex 2 isn’t required for DLSS 4, just the original version. That let Nvidia roll out a truly killer capability for DLSS 4: The ability to force DLSS 3 games to run DLSS 4 MFG instead using an override in the Nvidia app, rather than requiring developers to go back and update older titles. Because of this, you’ll be able to use 75 games and apps with DLSS 4 the day your new RTX 5090 shows up. That’s a huge improvement over the usual long, multi-month (or multi-year) rollout for new AI rendering technologies. Bottom line: DLSS 4 is a stunning upgrade you must play around with to fully appreciate its benefits. It’s literally a game-changer, once again — though we’ll have to see if it feels this sublime on lower-end Nvidia cards like the more affordable RTX 5070. We’re gonna need a bigger power supply Okay, so you’re sold on the RTX 5090! Not so fast. You may need to adjust the rest of your PC build to accommodate it. Fortunately, the meticulously designed Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition has been engineered down to a slim, svelte two-slot solution that can easily slip into any PC (including Adam’s SFF rig). But adding all the extra hardware and then cranking up the juice means you may need a new power supply. The GeForce RTX 5090 pushes the power supply requirement goalposts to 1,000W, up from the 4090’s 850W mandate. If you don’t want to use the included 12VHPWR adapter cables, consider picking up a PSU that ships with those included — though Nvidia has listened to past feedback and overhauled its fugly adapter to include a woven-braided design with longer cords. Hallelujah. Despite its small stature, the RTX 5090 Founders Edition ran quietly enough in our testing, and didn’t heat up our rooms nearly as much as feared. Nvidia nailed the design on this one. The GPU hit 84 degrees Celsius in our testing, which is a bit on the warm side, but well within spec tolerances. Bigger 3- and 4-slot custom 5090s will no doubt tame temperatures in exchange for their larger size and higher sticker prices. …and a bigger budget If the RTX 4090 was over your budget, this will be too. The GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition starts at $1,999, but I expect it and the MSRP-priced custom cards we see at launch to disappear quickly, driving prices up. Go stand in line at midnight at Best Buy or prepare to battle masses of scalpers and AI researchers online if you want the 5090 day one. Again, the 4090 is still going for $2,800 to $3,200 online right now, today because of its immense use to AI researchers and developers — and the RTX 5090 obliterates it in that field. Bottom line: Bleeding-edge performance at a bleeding-edge price This is a weird review to have to wrap into a neat conclusion. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry In a vacuum, the RTX 5090 delivers around a 30 percent average boost in gaming performance over the RTX 4090. That’s a solid generational improvement, but one we’ve seen throughout history delivered at the same price point as the older, slower outgoing hardware. Nvidia asking for an extra $500 on top seems garish and overblown from that perspective. But the RTX 5090 isn’t like past generations. We’re in the AI era now, and AI professionals will no doubt sell their firstborn to get ahold of the awesomely powerful GPU, massive memory pool, and ferociously fast memory bandwidth — three crucial hardware considerations for the field. Given that, I suspect prices for this monstrous graphics card to rise as rapidly as Godzilla does from Japan’s seas. If you demand the very best of bleeding-edge gaming hardware, price be damned, you’ll drool over the GeForce RTX 5090. It’s built to handle anything and everything with aplomb, churning out ray-traced frames at a frenetic pace and then cranking smoothness way past 11 with DLSS 4’s magic. With over 75 games and apps scheduled to support DLSS 4 on the day of the RTX 5090’s launch, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to put your fancy new hardware to work. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry While I wouldn’t recommend upgrading to this over the RTX 4090 for gaming (unless you’re giddy to try DLSS 4), it’s a definite upgrade option for the RTX 3090 and anything older. The 4090 was 55 to 83 percent faster than the 3090 in games, and the 5090 is about 30 percent faster than that, with gobs more memory. At the end of the day, nobody needs a $2,000 graphics card to play games. But if you want one and don’t mind the sticker price, this is easily the most powerful, capable graphics card ever released. The GeForce RTX 5090 is a performance monster supercharged by DLSS 4’s see-it-to-believe it magic. Read...

This year at CES, Nvidia presented the next generation of its DLSS upscaling technology, which is trained with the help of artificial intelligence, alongside the new GeForce RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 (Ti) graphics cards. The company touted its major advantages — and now that RTX 5090 reviews are live, we can confirm that DLSS 4 indeed feels like black magic, supercharging frame rates and making games feel just as snappy as the beloved Doom 2016. That’s because DLSS 4 now supports Multi Frame Generation (MFG), an AI-based multiple intermediate frame calculation that can artificially generate up to three images and insert them between two “real” frames, thus quadrupling the frame rate. Of course, this feature only works on new Blackwell-based RTX 50-series GPUs. But are the AI frames generated in this way a step forward or is it all hogwash? Let’s take a close look at DLSS 4 and its multi-frame generation works along with some early impressions. Nvidia DLSS 4 in detail The 2-slot RTX 5090 Founders Edition (right) next to the 3-slot RTX 4090. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry Nvidia DLSS 4 builds atop the existing DLSS 3 and DLSS 3.5 feature set. It’s made up of the following five functions: DLSS Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (“DLAA”) DLSS Multi Frame Generation (“MFG”) DLSS Ray Reconstruction (“RR”) DLSS Frame Generation (“FG”) DLSS Super Resolution (“SR”) The classic upscaling technology DLSS Super Resolution renders games a lower internal resolution, then upscales to a higher output resolution with the help of AI. Super Resolution also works on older graphics cards from the GeForce RTX 20-, 30-, and 40-series, but it gets more complicated with the other DLSS features. While the simple DLSS Frame Generation (FG) is reserved for the GeForce RTX 40- and 50-series graphics cards, the latest DLSS Multi Frame Generation feature is only supported by the latest generation. DLSS Ray Reconstruction, which improves visual fidelity in ray traced games, is mastered by all RTX graphics processors.Nvidia itself graphically summarized the entire feature set of DLSS 4 by generation. Nvidia Together with DLSS 4, Nvidia is also introducing a new Transformer AI model, which replaces the previously used Convolutional Neural Network (“CNN”) as the neural network behind DLSS. Nvidia promises gamers even better upscaling, more precise ray reconstruction, refined AI edge smoothing (DLAA), and more performance with the switch. We can confirm it looks great in action. The advanced architecture of the new neural network uses the principle of “Deep Attention” as well as the global context to generate significantly sharper details and significantly reduce artifacts such as ghosting. Nvidia What is Multi Frame Generation? Nvidia DLSS 4 now supports Multi Frame Generation, an intermediate image calculation that can artificially generate up to three AI-calculated images and insert them between two classically rendered images. Standard DLSS 3 Frame Generation only inserts a single AI frame between rendered images. Nvidia shows the difference in two easy-to-understand diagrams below: The new technology uses several neural networks, as well as the Nvidia Optical Flow Accelerator and the optimized tensor computing units inside the new Blackwell GPU architecture powering the RTX 50-series. Note that Multi Frame Generation will not be backwards compatible with prior RTX generations.Nvidia promises huge leaps in performance through the use of DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation and makes this clear using the example of the particularly performance-hungry action role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry In PCWorld’s testing, both visual smoothness and responsiveness skyrocketed after flipping on DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation in Cyberpunk 2077 (using the RT Overdrive preset and 1.7x DLSS scaling). Without any sort of Frame Generation on, the game runs at 71fps; enabling DLSS 4 MFG lets it run an absolutely staggering 251 percent faster, and a just-as-insane 91 percent faster than the 5090 with DLSS 3’s single Frame Gen active. Hitting such high speeds looks and feels so good. But what effect do these so-called “fake frames” have on the gaming experience and image quality? DLSS 4: Is it true progress or “fake frames”? Gamers who use Multi Frame Generation must be aware that when it’s on, “artificial” frames are added to each “real” rendered frame. But is this ultimately real progress, as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described the feature at his contentious CES 2025 keynote, or is it just “fake frames” as some enthusiasts have been shouting from the rooftops in online forums?Of course, the whole thing needs to be considered in a differentiated way and in independent tests. It’s understandable that buyers of a $1,999 graphics card want significantly better performance without “tricks” compared to the previous generation. (Fortunately, the RTX 5090 delivers solid traditional performance gains too.) But as the calendar flipped over to 2025, PCWorld declared that AI upscaling killed native graphics gaming. We’re better off for it. After using it, DLSS 4 feels like it drives that theory home. Whether DLSS 4 adds true extra “frames” in the traditional sense or acts more like motion smoothing on steroids is an important technical distinction that demands further discussion and testing. But there’s no doubt that games look and feel so much smoother and snappier with DLSS 4 MFG and Nvidia Reflex active. It provides a big boost to the quality of your gaming experiences, period (though I’d still hesitate to turn it on in competitive multiplayer games). We have more DLSS 4 coverage coming, but here’s a tease from our RTX 5090 review: Turning on DLSS 4 makes Star Wars Outlaws, a fun game prone to performance concerns, feel just as good as the legendary Doom 2016, which many gamers consider the paragon of fast-action shooters. “It’s like a whole new game,” PCWorld’s Will Smith says. It’s high praise coming from a guy who has been reviewing graphics cards and making games for decades. An initial conclusion The use of artificial intelligence and features based on it (like DLSS 4) should be welcomed if, for example, intelligent AI upscaling improves both the picture quality and the frame rate — like DLSS Super Resolution does. The intelligent and extremely powerful AI edge smoothing using DLAA is also a gain, especially for enthusiasts. The fact that Nvidia no longer compares its new generation of graphics cards with native rendering performance from the previous generation, instead marketing somewhat “embellished” frame rate values with long bar charts in benchmarks, isn’t very helpful. Comparisons of a GeForce RTX 4090 with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation against a GeForce RTX 5090 with DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation say absolutely nothing about the actual increase in rendering performance and are a source of uncertainty for buyers. The poor initial reception by gamers is understandable and justified. That being said, now that we’ve tested it, DLSS 4 truly is a revolutionary, game-changing technology. Trying to show such a gigantic experiential leap forward is hard to do with simple frame rate graphs. I don’t like that Nvidia failed to show how the RTX 5090 compares to the 4090 in traditional performance during its blockbuster CES keynote, but it’s somewhat understandable now that we’ve experienced the difference with our own eyes and hands. DLSS 4 is that good. Perhaps the bigger takeaway here? Hardware and software-side AI features such as upscaling, frame generation, latency improvers, and dedicated AI hardware are here to stay and will play an even greater role in the future. The days of native rendering are coming to an end. You certainly don’t have to like that, but I think enthusiasts need to start accepting it. The game has changed. Read...

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