We’re now only days away from an expected announcement about Nvidia’s next-gen graphics cards, so naturally, the leaks regarding the launch are coming thick and fast. According to this latest rumor, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 will officially launch with a thermal design power (TDP) rating that’s significantly higher than Nvidia’s last-gen flagship card, while the RTX 5080’s power draw increase will be more modest in comparison.
With current 40-series cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 offering the best performance you can get right now, it’s no wonder that Nvidia has dominated our best graphics card shortlist over recent years. The GPU maker is expected to launch these new RTX 5000 GPUs at the CES 2025 trade show next week, and we’re anticipating the new cards to once again put Nvidia top of the performance pile.
In a post thread on X (formerly Twitter), hardware leakers hongxing2020 and kopite7kimi discussed the TDP figures of both the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080, with hongxing2020 suggesting that the RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575W, while kopite7kimi suggested that the 5080 will ship with a 360W TDP.
For the RTX 5090, that’s an increase of 125W over the RTX 4090, which has a 450W TDP. The 575W figure would also match with other recent RTX 5090 power rumors from kopite7kimi, who suggested that the RTX 5090’s power rating would be “a slight decrease” on the long-speculated 600W figure. While higher power figures don’t guarantee better performance, it’s fair to say that this new rumor suggests that Nvidia isn’t going to be leaving its latest GPUs without enough juice.
As for the RTX 5080, a 360W TDP would be a modest increase over the RTX 4080, which shipped with a 320W TDP. However, that’s still 40W less than the 400W rating that the 5080 was speculated to have, which will certainly make it easier for gamers to upgrade without having to invest in a new, higher wattage power supply.
Thankfully, we don’t have long to wait until we find out for sure. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected to announce both cards in Nvidia’s keynote speech at CES 2025 in Las Vegas next week, with 5090 launch rumors suggesting it’ll hit retailers a few weeks after the RTX 5080 begins shipping out in mid January.
Check out our RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 guides to get up to date on all the latest rumors before we hear from Nvidia. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our CES news hub next week either, where you’ll be able to catch up with our own reports from this hugely influential trade show.