In 2022, I wrote that GPUs were heading in the wrong direction—that their price, size, and power consumption were exceeding expectations. While I still believe that's true, I can now confirm that Nvidia has made at least one surprising exception in the size category: a two-socket "Founders Edition" of its RTX 5090 graphics card, which will be available on January 30th.

The last time Nvidia made a two-slot flagship graphics card was the RTX 3080 Ti FE in 2021, and the 3090, 4080, and 4090 looked huge in comparison.

So while my colleague Tom Warren was busy writing a full review of the new 5090, one of the best gaming CPUs around, I plugged a $2,000 graphics card into my own aging mini desktop. I wanted to see if this surprisingly small flagship GPU was truly suitable for a small form factor (SFF) case, or if my beloved 12.7L Ncase M1 case was really out of date.

To my surprise, it worked: All I needed was a new power supply to turn my backpack-sized daily driver into one of the most powerful gaming PCs in the world. At 4K resolution I typically see more than double the frame rates I get with the RTX 3080 Founder's Edition, one of the last cards that can be easily installed in an Ncase M1, to give you some idea.

But I wouldn’t suggest you do the same! First of all, we are talking about two thousand dollars graphics card and a One kilowatt Power supply - I actually saw my power supply draw a full kilowatt (measured via my trusty wall-mounted Kill A Watt) Cyberpunk 2077 test. With the RTX 3080, my system consumes over 200 watts less. I don’t mind having a space heater on those cold January days!

But I actually had to wedge the 5090 into my Ncase M1 to get it to fit, and even remove and reinstall the graphics card bracket inside the case. Even so, I couldn't completely seal my desktop because the GPU's new 12V-2x6 power connector takes up space where my case's side panel should be. You'll want an SFF case that has more licenses than I do.

Still, having the innards of my desktop exposed is a small price to pay for playing with so much power! In addition to full ray tracing (aka path tracing), it's enough to play the game at 4K at maximum settings. If you combine this with dynamic upscaling and/or fake frame generation technology, it even has enough horsepower to turn on path tracking.

I usually play Hellraiser 2 I had to rely on these tricks to get a smooth 4K-ish gaming experience on an old 3060 Ti graphics card I bought for just $400. It would be awesome to finally be able to play this game on the 5090, if that's what I expected.

What I didn't expect: My aging, space-constrained AMD 5800X desktop delivered the same performance as Tom's open-air test rig in many of our 4K gaming benchmarks. I know it's possible, but it shows that Nvidia's nifty two-slot "dual flow-through" cooler is indeed suitable for SFF PCs.

Of course it depends on whether your game is CPU bound as my old PC had a really slow CPU and most games these days are at least somewhat CPU bound at 1440p and Tom's system usually Will be far ahead 20 times 60%.

Face alien swarms and flying particles returnfor example, Tom pulled 201 frames per second at 1440p, while my small desktop could only achieve 169fps; at Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Editionthe most CPU-bound game we're testing, my bottlenecked system only averaged 123 fps, while Tom's was at 200 fps.

But it's still over 120 fps at max settings, which is more than enough for smooth running of these single-player games! If I paired my little tower with a 4K TV (instead of a 1440p monitor) in my living room (as many SFF PC builders probably like to do), I'd have a lot of fun — my 4K results always average over 60fps , and is usually only a few frames on Tom's open bench.

Then again, I typically see the RTX 5090 offering more than double the horsepower of the RTX 3080, making it an upgrade for deep-pocketed SFF fans. That's not necessarily something to celebrate, though: There's no denying that the $2,000 RTX 5090 costs more than twice as much as the $700 RTX 3080 that launched in 2020, and even if shortages and scalpers don't woo them, it won't be a problem for most gamers. It will also be out of reach. rears its ugly head.

At the end of the day, I think the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is a really cool piece of kit. This makes me want to quote ferris bueller's day off because it is so choose. This is a notable exception to the very annoying trend of GPUs scaling in every direction. But at $2,000, with 575 watts of power, and no other Nvidia board partner offering anything nearly as compact, it's the exception that proves the rule.

Photography: Sean Hollister/The Verge