Will PCIe 5.0 be mandatory for Nvidia’s RTX 5090?
Will PCIe 5.0 be required for Nvidia’s RTX 5090 and RTX 5080?
We have seen many social media posts claiming that Nvidia’s upcoming RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs will require PCIe 5.0 support to operate. The number of these posts was so large that we needed to find the source of these claims and set the record straight.
We quickly found that these claims originated from a post on Gizmodo. This post reported on the RTX 5080 and RTX5090 GPU specifications that leaked last week. Note that these leaks merely said that these GPUs would support PCIe 5.0, not that PCIe 5.0 support was mandatory. Below is what Gizmodo had to say.
Both 5080 and 5090 will require a PCIe 5.0 slot, which debuted earlier this year. That’s expected, but it also reminds consumers that they will need to procure a new motherboard if they hope to upgrade from any PCIe 4.0-based graphics card.
– Gizmodo
Lots of factual errors
For starters, it is claimed that motherboards with PCIe 5.0 slots “debuted earlier this year.” This is false. Motherboards with PCIe 5.0 X16 slots launched in 2021 alongside Intel’s Alder Lake processors. Additionally, AMD launched its first PCIe 5.0 compatible AM5 motherboards in 2022 alongside its Ryzen 7000 series CPUs. PCIe 5.0-compatible motherboards have been available for years; it isn’t a new feature for 2024 motherboards.
Next, Gizmodo has forgotten that the PCIe standards are designed to be backwards compatible. As such, PCIe 5.0 devices will work on PCIe 4.0 and older motherboards. The only way that Nvidia’s RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 wouldn’t work on PCIe 4.0 motherboards is if Nvidia had some software lock that prevents this. Simply put, Nvidia would be foolish to put such a lock in place, as it would limit potential hardware sales.
Rumour has it that Nvidia’s RTX 5080 will be 10% faster than their RTX 4090. If this is the case, there is no reason why PCIe 4.0 wouldn’t be more than sufficient for this GPU. After all, Nvidia’s RTX 4090 runs on PCIe 4.0 motherboards without issue.
The only major difference between PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 4.0 (from a consumer perspective) is that PCIe 5.0 offers users more bandwidth. Is this level of bandwidth necessary for gaming? Not really. While having access to more bandwidth is better, the benefits of this added bandwidth are minimal. In fact, Nvidia’s RTX 4090 using PCIe 3.0 is only a few percentage points slower than an RTX 4090 running using PCIe 4.0. The same should apply to Nvidia’s RTX 5090 on PCIe 5.0/4.0.
Will Nvidia’s RTX 5090 require PCIe 5.0?
The short answer is no. Nvidia is simply moving with the times here. PCIe 5.0 motherboards are readily available, so why not use PCIe 5.0 on their latest high-end graphics cards? If nothing else, PCIe 5.0 can deliver the same bandwidth as PCIe 4.0 when using half as many PCIe lanes. That means a PCIe 5.0 x8 lane can deliver the same bandwidth as a PCIe 4.0 x16 lane. That’s a useful feature for PC builders who use many add-in cards.
PCIe 5.0 support shouldn’t be mandatory for Nvidia’s RTX 50 series GPUs. It would be a needlessly restrictive requirement that would only annoy PC builders and reduce hardware sales.
You can join the discussion on Nvidia’s RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 supporting PCIe 5.0 on the OC3D Forums.
