NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 may finally bring more VRAM compared to its predecessor, along with a much higher memory bandwidth.
GeForce RTX 5090 to Increase VRAM Capacity While Retaining The Same 256-Bit Memory Bus, Featuring 3 GB GDDR7 Modules
From the recent leaks, we know that the GeForce RTX 5090 for the mobile platform will have the same VRAM capacity as the RTX 4090, i.e., 16 GB. However, the significant difference is the memory type, which, in the case of RTX 5090, is GDDR7 compared to GDDR6 on the predecessor.
This alone will be responsible for a much bigger memory bandwidth. As for the memory capacity, the VRAM size increase wasn’t possible on the RTX 4090 due to the absence of 3GB GDDR6 memory modules, which could soon change for the RTX 5090. As the prominent leaker Golden Pig Upgrade reported (via Weibo), the GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU is supposedly the first GPU to get 3 GB GDDR7 memory modules.
With this change, the memory capacity could be increased to 24 GB while retaining the same 256-bit memory bus. This adds 8 GB more VRAM to the confirmed RTX 5090 16 GB laptop edition, bringing the GPU to the level of the desktop RTX 4090 in terms of memory capacity. While this much VRAM may not be entirely beneficial in all games, it could make a difference in modern memory-hungry-intensive titles at 4K resolution, especially when the mods are deployed.
The GeForce RTX 5090 is the flagship GPU in the Blackwell series, and the laptop variant will also be the fastest in the lineup. At the moment, no other GPU is expected to bring 3 GB GDDR7 memory modules, which makes the RTX 5090 laptop the first and only in the lineup to get such a memory configuration.
While official specs have yet to be announced, recent leaks have revealed that it will utilize 28 Gbps GDDR7 memory, which is drastically faster than the 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory used on the RTX 4090. The RTX 5090 laptop GPU is also expected to use the GB203 die instead of GB202, which is NVIDIA’s usual route for the mobile variants.
While the desktop variant is expected to bring 21760 Cuda Cores, the mobile variant is expected to be reduced in half to about 10752 cores. With a max TDP of 175W, it will be a bit more power-hungry than its predecessor. The RTX 5090 laptop GPU was previously seen in a bunch of upcoming ASUS ROG laptops, along with other RTX 50 series SKUs.