Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

---

The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, powered by the Blackwell architecture, sets a new benchmark in GPU technology—not just for performance. With its adoption of the PCI-Express 5.0 x16 interface, a first for a high-end graphics card, the RTX 5090 achieves an incredible 64 GB/s of bidirectional bandwidth, a dramatic improvement over the RTX 4090's PCIe 4.0 x16 bandwidth of 32 GB/s. This substantial leap offers significant benefits for gaming, professional workloads, and data-intensive tasks, enabling smoother performance and faster data transfers.

While PCIe 5.0 unlocks the GPU's full potential, the RTX 5090 remains backward compatible with earlier PCIe generations, such as PCIe 4.0, 3.0, and even 2.0 and 1.1. This compatibility is invaluable for users with older systems, but it also prompts an essential question: how much does the PCIe interface impact performance?

RTX 5090 PCI-E Scaling: techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-pci-express-scaling
Full RTX 5090 Review: techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-founders-edition