It’s difficult to find news online about the advantages – and pitfalls – of the RTX 5090 for content creators, so we picked some of the sources you should read and watch to know what this new card does.
If you’re a content creator, finding the information you want about the new GeForce RTX 5090 card may be difficult, as most of the conversations seem to be about how the card works for gaming. There are many “clickbait” titles and opinions and a growing discussion about the use of AI in gaming, but resources that photographers, videographers, filmmakers and content creators may use to better understand this new generation are sparse.
To help ProVideo Coalition readers discover the card, we picked a video from NVIDIA about the new technology in the RTX 50 series as a starting point. Then we added some of the sources used regularly to know what’s better for tasks that go from video editing and rendering to photo editing, and present them here.
Announced, as ProVideo Coalition wrote, on January 7, as “the most advanced consumer GPUs for gamers, creators and developers” the new NVIDA RTX 5090 is now the source of a growing discussion online. Yes, it does reach – many – more frames per second than its predecessor, RTX 4090, but only does reach impressive numbers when using all the new technology developed by NVIDIA, and a mind-boggling trick, that generates multiple fake frames for each real frame from the game engine.
While some are impressed and only seem to be able to praise NVIDIA’s trick, the full revelation of the effects of MFG or Multi-Frame Generation has shown, when the first reviews of the RTX 5090 were published (yesterday), that under normal conditions, the new card is about 30% faster for games – and in other tasks – than the RTX 4090. So, we’re not at the same level of innovation as before, as the RTX 4090 represented a 77% gain in speed over the RTX 3090.
One important note before we continue: the RTX 5090 is a card to play games at 4K and beyond, it makes no sense to buy it for playing at lower resolutions… and you’ll need a powerful computer to use it. And to reach the fantastic frame rates shown by NVIDIA, it depends on AI, and the Multi-Frame Generation, so if you don’t like the idea of having “fake frames”, you better look elsewhere.
From “brute-force” to “brute-force AI”
The results from the RTX 5090 confirm that the skepticism about Jensen Huang’s claim, during the CES 2025 presentation, are correct: the quote “the RTX 5070 is as fast as the RTX 4090” is nothing more than marketing. Yes, the card does run faster, but only with DLSS 4 and MFG, which uses AI to generate not just alternate frames with AI – as the RTX 4090 can do -, but by generating up to three frames between each rendered frame. When used without those “crutches” the RTX 5070 can not keep with the RTX 4090. It’s as simple as that…
Remember when the RTX 4090 was launched and everybody claimed that NVIDIA was using “brute-force rendering” to get ahead of the competition? Well, now we’ve “brute-force AI” taking frame rates to stratospheric levels and while the discussion is likely to continue, there are not many alternatives, as AMD has, apparently, given up on developing high-end cards for gaming, and Intel, which has some interesting new solutions, aims for the entry market with cards under $300… if scalpers are kept at bay.
So, for gaming, if you’re not into the MFG magic, the RTX 40 series may be the right option. But if you really want the most powerful card and have the money for it, the RTX 5090 is for you. As the website VideoCardz notes, these cards are “for gamers with deep pockets”.
In fact, one can say that the RTX 5090 is not even for gamers, it’s a card designed for creators and developers. Powered by the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, fifth-generation Tensor Cores and fourth-generation RT Cores, the GeForce RTX 50 Series delivers, according to NVIDIA “breakthroughs in AI-driven rendering, including neural shaders, digital human technologies, geometry and lighting.” The new GPUs are poised to power the next era of generative and agentic AI content creation — offering new tools and capabilities for video, livestreaming, 3D and more.
Good news for content creators
As we wrote when the card was announced, the GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs “deliver a generational leap in NVIDIA encoders and decoders with support for the 4:2:2 pro-grade color format, multiview-HEVC (MV-HEVC) for 3D and virtual reality (VR) video, and the new AV1 Ultra High Quality mode.”
Most consumer cameras are confined to 4:2:0 color compression, which reduces the amount of color information. 4:2:0 is typically sufficient for video playback on browsers, but it can’t provide the color depth needed for advanced video editors to color grade videos. The 4:2:2 format provides double the color information with just a 1.3x increase in RAW file size — offering an ideal balance for video editing workflows.
Decoding 4:2:2 video can be challenging due to the increased file sizes. GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs include 4:2:2 hardware support that can decode up to eight times the 4K 60 frames per second (fps) video sources per decoder, enabling smooth multi-camera video editing.
The GeForce RTX 5090 GPU is equipped with three encoders and two decoders, the GeForce RTX 5080 GPU includes two encoders and two decoders, the 5070 Ti GPUs has two encoders with a single decoder, and the GeForce RTX 5070 GPU includes a single encoder and decoder. These multi-encoder and decoder setups, paired with faster GPUs, enable the GeForce RTX 5090 to export video 60% faster than the GeForce RTX 4090 and at 4x speed compared with the GeForce RTX 3090.
GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs also feature the ninth-generation NVIDIA video encoder, NVENC, that offers a 5% improvement in video quality on HEVC and AV1 encoding (BD-BR), as well as a new AV1 Ultra Quality mode that achieves 5% more compression at the same quality. They also include the sixth-generation NVIDIA decoder, with 2x the decode speed for H.264 video.
NVIDIA is collaborating with Adobe Premiere Pro, Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve, Capcut and Wondershare Filmora to integrate these technologies, starting in February.
3D video is starting to catch on thanks to the growth of VR, AR and mixed reality headsets. The new RTX 50 Series GPUs also come with support for MV-HEVC codecs to unlock such formats in the near future.
The RTX 5090 is overkill for many cases, says Puget Systems
According to Puget Systems, which is now a reference when it comes to solutions for content creators and has the tools to test systems, “the RTX 5090 is a beast of a card” and can be “overkill for many use cases” but, as Evan Lagergren, Labs Hardware Technician & Technical Writer at Puget Systems notes, “it excels at GPU-heavy workloads like rendering and provides solid performance improvements over the last-gen 4090 in many applications.”
Evan Lagergren also notes that “for video editing and motion graphics, the RTX 5090 performs well, with 10-20% improvements across the board. In particular sub-tests, where the workload is primarily GPU bound, we see up to 35% performance advantages over the previous-generation 4090” and adds that “In rendering applications, real-time and offline, the 5090 pushes its lead over previous-generation cards even further. It is 17% faster than the 4090 in our Unreal Engine benchmark while also offering more VRAM for heavy scenes.“
According to the test from Puget Systems, “NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 5090 is a monster of a GPU, delivering best-in-class performance alongside a rich feature set. However, it comes along with a huge price tag of $2,000 MSRP, and likely higher for most buyers, as AIB cards will be a good bit more expensive than that. It also requires that your computer can support that much power draw and heat. If you need the most powerful consumer GPU ever made, this is it.”
If this short note made you curious, follow the link to the whole article “NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Content Creation Review”, which explains in detail the new NVIDIA card.
MFG gives you a slightly jelly feel, says JayzTwoCents
The second source used for this guide is the YouTube channel JayzTwoCents, which is a good source if you’re a creator that also plays games and you want some “grown-up” information about this, in JayzTwoCents words, “insanely expensive graphics card”. If you’re into gaming, the part about Cyberpunk 2077 is important to watch, as it reveals how Multi-Fame Generation works and its pitfalls, with increased latency being one of them.
In the video JayzTwoCents says that when playing Cyberpunk 2077 with all bells and whistles, the feeling he gets is that although the frame rate displayed on the screen is 201 fps, the input is going to feel like you’re still at 60 fps, “so you’re going to get what feels like a slightly jelly feel“.
The video, which I believe you should watch until the end, gives a very clear indication of what to expect and raises some interesting questions regarding what the future will bring, for both gamers and content creators. As is said in the video, the RTX 5090 is a card that is kind of like the first in what the future will bring.
According to JayzTwoCents the RTX 5090 is more than a gaming card and is not really intended for those who have an RTX 4090, unless they need a card with high- frame pool buffer to do AI workloads. The RTX 5080 will probably be the best new card for gamers… or for creators without deep pockets. As someone that play mostly simulation games, I am not even considering buying the RTX 5090, and will stay with the RTX 4090, which I acquired at launch and continues to be good for both video and photo editing and playing DCS or Elite: Dangerous in VR thanks to its “brute-force”.
My younger son, João, who is a gamer and a programmer at Funcom, working on the upcoming Dune: Awakening multiplayer survival game, wants to move from his RTX 3080 and is building a new system around AMD’s new fast processor. He wanted the RTX 5090 but is disappointed with the news and may wait to see how the RTX 5080 fares, when the first reviews are published, by the end of January. Only then he will decide if he buys into the new family or simply gets an RTX 4090… if they appear in the market and have a lower price, due to the introduction of the RTX 50 series. Which some people doubt will happen, due to scalpers…
The RTX 4090 is the “best bang for buck” according to Tech Notice
The last source of information we picked for content creators, video editors and photographers is Tech Notice’s YouTube channel, which reviews “…the MOST POWERFUL 2-slot GPU in the world – Nvidia RTX 5090!” and explains “How good is it for creators, AI, video & photo editing and 3D applications!” promising that “Here’s all you need to know!”
According to Tech Notice, the “best bang for buck” continues to be the RTX 4090, but if you are doing AI video editing or you’re interested in Generative AI then “the 5090 is in a whole another league and is absolutely insane”. Tech Notice also notes that because of all the video editing done in-house, the 5090 looks very appealing and “makes me want to upgrade from 4090 and 4070 TI that my editors are using because that would save us a ton of time”.
Although there are other – good – sources of information, the three used here are essential to know the most important aspects of the new NVIDIA RTX 5090 without having to go through the deluge of “reviews”, “opinions” and garbage available online, most of them looking at the RTX 50 series from a gamer’s perspective.
We end this guide with a note from Tech Notice, who states that the RTX 5090 “is single-handedly the fastest and most powerful dual slot GPU in the world” and that “if you’re a creator there’s a ton of things about this graphics card that you should be super excited about…” but also notes that there is a “but” to be aware of. We hope reading this article and watching the videos or following the links helps you understand what the RTX 5090 is and who is the target audience for this new series from NVIDIA, which is now known not as a developer of gaming cards but the “World Leader in Artificial Intelligence Computing.”

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