The rising power consumption of dedicated desktop graphics cards from one generation to the next has sparked concern about their future. This concern has been reignited with the emergence of rumors surrounding Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell lineup.
A prominent leaker, kopite7kimi, has claimed that the higher-end Blackwell GPUs will see significant increases in wattage. Specifically, the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 is rumored to consume 600W, while the 5080 may consume 400W.
However, it’s essential to take this information with a grain of salt, as similar rumors about the Ada Lovelace cards proved to be unfounded. In addition, Nvidia might not have finalized the TDPs for Blackwell yet, and the rumored TDPs might represent Total Board Power or maximum power draw, which can differ from the typical user experience.
The projected release dates for RTX 5000 have shifted over the last few months, but it’s now expected that the cards might debut at CES 2025 in January. Around the same time or in late 2024, AMD’s upcoming RDNA4 series and Intel’s Arc Battlemage lineup could also appear.
The Blackwell lineup is expected to offer improved performance, with the flagship RTX 5090 anticipated to be significantly faster than the 4090. Most RTX 5000 GPUs, except the mainstream desktop RTX 5060, are expected to feature GDDR7 memory, and the series is based on TSMC’s 5nm 4N EUV node process.
The latest rumors surrounding Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell GPU lineup have sparked concern about power consumption. A prominent leaker claims that the higher-end Blackwell GPUs will consume significantly more power than their predecessors, with the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 possibly drawing 600W.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen rumors like this. Similar rumors about the Ada Lovelace cards proved to be unfounded, and the actual TDPs were modestly changed compared to the previous generation. It’s possible that these rumors might not represent final TDPs, so it’s essential to take the information with a grain of skepticism.
The RTX 5000 series is expected to debut at CES 2025 in January, and it will be interesting to see how these power consumption rumors play out. Will Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU lineup live up to the rumors, or will they prove to be unfounded like before?