Nvidia launches RTX 50 series gaming chips at CES 2025

Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at CES 2025 on Monday, debuting the chip giant’s latest generation of graphics processors for desktop and laptop gaming systems. Based on the Blackwell architecture that powers Nvidia’s AI data center chips, the new GeForce RTX 50 series cards promise a raft of improvements for PC gamers and content creators.

The company is also bringing more of its AI know-how to the cards with new software that it promises will dramatically improve gaming performance compared to prior generations. The lineup is broken down into two series: those for desktop systems and those for laptops.

The lineup includes the RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. Desktop versions of the cards start at $549 for the RTX 5070 and jump to $1,999 for the top-of-the-line RTX 5090. Pricing for the laptop versions of the chips depends on the notebook’s manufacturer, but Nvidia estimates RTX-equipped laptops will cost roughly $1,299, while those running the RTX 5090 will come in at about $2,899.

The monstrous desktop version of the RTX 5090, which I’ll be saving up for, is outfitted with 92 billion transistors and, like the rest of the RTX 50 series lineup, uses TSMC’s 4-nanometer chip process.

In addition to the standard generational performance improvements, Nvidia says it’s managed to squeeze even more functionality out of its DLSS (deep learning super sampling) technology, which uses AI to enhance a game’s graphics and frame rate beyond what a system’s hardware is normally capable of.

The latest version of DLSS — DLSS 4 —includes what Nvidia calls Multi Frame Generation. DLSS can already add frames to a game’s output, improving overall frame rate. Frame rate, or frames per second, is the number of times your computer refreshes what you see on your display. The higher the frame rate, the smoother the image appears.

The prior version of DLSS would render a game scene and then generate it for you to see. And while it helped improve performance, Nvidia says Multi Frame Generation takes it well beyond what was previously possible by rendering a game scene and then generating three scenes on top of that.

While it might sound wonky, the upshot is that Nvidia says you’ll get an 8x improvement over standard game rendering. Add DLSS 4 to RTX 5070, and you’ll get the same level of gaming performance as Nvidia’s previous top dog: the RTX 4090. In fact, the company says its RTX 5090 is twice as fast as the RTX 4090 with DLSS 4.

On the laptop front, Nvidia says the RTX 50 series can improve battery life in thin and light laptops by as much as 40% without shaving off performance.

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Nvidia is also deploying other technologies for its latest software, including RTX Neural Faces, a way to improve the look of game characters’ faces. A new suite of technologies called Nvidia ACE also promises to help developers make AI characters that move around their game worlds in a more realistic way, simulating how other players might move.

In-game AI characters can often behave strangely, walking into walls or glitching out, so a technology that can help developers ensure non-player characters move appropriately could be a boon.

Nvidia’s gaming division is still its second-largest business by revenue, though it’s considerably dwarfed by its Data Center segment. In Q3, gaming accounted for $3.3 billion of the company’s sales. Data Center brought in $30.8 billion of Nvidia’s $35.1 billion in total revenue for the quarter.

That said, Nvidia’s gaming revenue still beats out rival AMD (AMD), which reported $462 million in gaming sales in its latest quarter.

Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.

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