NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

Every spec side by side, from each maker's published figures.

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GeForce GTX 980 Ti compared with GeForce RTX 5090

	NVIDIAGeForce GTX 980 Ti	NVIDIAGeForce RTX 5090
Overview
Released
Released	June 2015	January 2025
Performance
Chip maker
Chip maker	NVIDIA	NVIDIA
Architecture
Architecture	Maxwell	Blackwell
Shader cores
Shader cores	2,816	21,760
Boost clock
Boost clock	1,075 MHz	2,407 MHz (better)
Architecture
Architecture	Reference main figures follow NVIDIA's retained 900-series table. Photo shows MSI's reference-style GTX 980 Ti 6GD5. The first-sale date comes from TweakTown's contemporary coverage, which explicitly states announced and released June 1; the original maker launch page is retired.	GB202 GPU; 170 SMs, 680 texture units, 176 ROPs
Manufacturing process
Manufacturing process	–	TSMC 4nm (4N NVIDIA custom process); 92.2 billion transistors; 750 mm² die
Ray tracing
Ray tracing	No dedicated RT Cores	170 fourth-generation RT Cores; 318 RT TFLOPS
AI cores
AI cores	No Tensor Cores	680 fifth-generation Tensor Cores; 3352 AI TOPS
Upscaling and frame generation
Upscaling and frame generation	No NVIDIA DLSS	DLSS 4.5 with Super Resolution, DLAA, Ray Reconstruction, Frame Generation, Multi Frame Generation and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation
Base clock
Base clock	1000 MHz; NVIDIA lists 1075 MHz boost, while MSI's GTX 980 Ti 6GD5 datasheet lists 1076 MHz.	2.01 GHz
Cache
Cache	–	96 MB L2
Memory
Video memory
Video memory	6 GB GDDR5	32 GB GDDR7 (better)
Memory bus
Memory bus	384-bit	512-bit (better)
Memory bandwidth
Memory bandwidth	–	1,792 GB/s
Memory detail
Memory detail	7 Gbps GDDR5; MSI lists 7010 MHz effective memory speed. Numerical bandwidth omitted because the maker sources used do not publish it.	GDDR7 at 28 Gbps
Connections and power
Board power
Board power	250 W (better)	575 W
Interface
Interface	PCIe 3.0	PCIe 5.0
Display outputs
Display outputs	3 × DisplayPort 1.2, 1 × HDMI and 1 × dual-link DVI-I (MSI GTX 980 Ti 6GD5); MSI's datasheet does not state the HDMI version.	3 × DisplayPort 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 × HDMI 2.1b; up to 4 displays; HDCP 2.3
Maximum resolution
Maximum resolution	–	4K at 480 Hz or 8K at 165 Hz with DSC
Power connector
Power connector	1 × 6-pin and 1 × 8-pin	1 × 600 W PCIe Gen 5 cable, or 4 × PCIe 8-pin cables with the adapter in the box
Recommended power supply
Recommended power supply	600 W	1000 W
Slot width
Slot width	–	2-slot (Founders Edition)
Size (reference card)
Size (reference card)	275 × 110 × 37 mm and 920 g (MSI GTX 980 Ti 6GD5)	304 × 137 mm, 2-slot (Founders Edition)
Video encode and decode
Video encode and decode	–	3 × ninth-generation NVENC, 2 × sixth-generation NVDEC; AV1 encode and decode