New RTX 5080 & 5090 Graphics Cards releasing on January 31st at 3am in New Zealand

The internet is abuzz following the NVIDIA keynote at CES 2025, where the GeForce team announced a range of RTX 50 series graphics cards, with the new RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 models set to release on January 31st, 2025, early morning at 3am here in New Zealand. 

The first models expected to be available on Day One are from the brands GALAX, ASUS and GIGABYTE, with more options from MSI, ZOTAC and PNY expected to arrive in NZ a little later.  All options will be available for order in the NVIDIA RTX Store at PB Tech once released.

In the NVIDIA presentation they showed off their in-house reference cooler design, which looked much the same as last gen with some variations in thickness, but otherwise not really sporting anything radically new, but now we've also seen some awesome new cooler designs from partners like the completely new ASUS ROG ASTRAL pictured above, blazing GALAX GAMER EX and PNY XLR8 pouring on addressable RGB, minimalist MSI INSPIRE OC and a new super sleek black Gigabyte WindForce OC coming also!

Jumping straight into the essentials for those looking to upgrade on day one, there are details in motherboard and power supply specification that should get your attention.  Much like the previous RTX range there is no direct 6+2-Pin power supply option to be seen. All new RTX 50 models use the 12+4 Pin power input which is now native on many ATX 3.0 / 3.1 power supplies - and there is still a multi-cable 6+2-pin to 12+4-Pin adaptor included in the boxes with all new RTX 50 Series graphics cards as well. Wattage wise it varies from card to card, and they are all fairly power hungry with options such as the GIGABYTE RTX 5080 Gaming OC recommending an 850W PSU, and the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 recommending we use 1000W.

For those looking at getting new PSU so they can use the single 12+4 cable for power rather than the adaptor, you'll see there are now two versions of the cable available - 12VHPWR or 12V-2x6 - both are the same cable but the newer 12V-2x6 has some differences in pin length which will help address those moments when a user cable isn’t quite seated right, but whichever one you end up using, the best advice is to be sure you connect in straight and go in all the way.  If you find yourself tight on space and are considering a new case, you can use the CPU clearance height spec to help narrow down on which ones will have enough room for the cables by taking the width measurement of your graphics card and adding around 3cm on top of that for ample cable space, comparing the two numbers. So for something like the Gigabyte RTX 5080 AORUS MASTER with a width of 150mm, we'd look for a PC case with CPU clearance of at least 180mm. 

Looking at motherboards next for that PCIe 5.0 x16 slot requirement, it’s thankfully all very easy, if you’re wanting to check your motherboard but don’t know your exact motherboard model, a good way to find this info is to press the ‘start’ key and type ‘system’ then press ‘enter’ - a window will pop up and the motherboard model number is just under the name of your PC (the second line from the top, in the box that has ‘rename your pc’ on the right), you can then search that and check the spec to know what you have.

For those looking to build a new system, you can use filters in the Motherboard department at PB Tech to select motherboards with a PCIe 5.0 slot and the website will show options to match, the x16 part of the spec means it’s a long slot, you can often see the spec in the picture too!

Along with the increased power and motherboard requirements comes an array of Nvidia software updates for the 50 series including new DLSS 4 technology for improved FPS while maintaining excellent image detail. And while most of DLSS 4 looks to be backwards compatible with 40 series, the new DLSS Multi Frame Generation feature is exclusive to the latest.

Via Nvidia: At CES 2025, we’re advancing DLSS once again with the introduction of DLSS 4, featuring Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards and laptops; 75 games and apps will have support for Multi Frame Generation when they’re released. DLSS Multi Frame Generation generates up to three additional frames per traditionally rendered frame, working in unison with the complete suite of DLSS technologies to multiply frame rates by up to 8X over traditional brute-force rendering. This massive performance improvement on GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards unlocks stunning 4K 240 FPS fully ray-traced gaming.

DLSS 4 also incorporates NVIDIA Reflex, for low system latency and optimum responsiveness. System latency is the time taken for information to go from one place to another, whereby having a lower system latency makes game controls more responsive, helping to ensure our on-screen actions occur almost instantaneously, like when we click the mouse button to shoot our weapon. This won't make RTX 50 players unstoppable though, and there is still going to be all that network latency stuff - so it’s still going to be tough for us here in NZ when we're playing games on international servers.

Now onto the really good stuff - let’s take a closer look at some of the new RTX 50 series Graphics Cards incoming to New Zealand!

GIGABYTE GAMING OC was/is the top seller from both previous 40 series and 30 series graphics card releases, and the new design looks awesome as! The legendary three-ring lighting is a feature yet again for our visual enjoyment, and using the GIGABYTE CONTROL CENTER software you can quickly and easily choose from a range of lighting effects or just synchronise with your other Gigabyte components, you can even let the system choose colours depending on CPU or GPU load which is a brilliant way to give your RGB some purpose aside from looking cool. New to the design is sliding side plate which either highlights the brand logo with RGB, or makes it subtler and lets the lightbar shine.

The Gigabyte Gaming OC is metallic with super cool A-RGB fan trims

You can output to 4 displays simultaneously via HDMI & DisplayPort

The backplate is solid, with a channel cut at the end to allow air to blow right through

This one is also part of Gigabyte Ultra Durable certified, with highest-grade metal chokes, lower ESR solid capacitors, 2oz copper PCB, and lower Rds across MOSFETs, plus over-temperature design to deliver superior performance and longer system life.

ROG ASTRAL is a brand new design from ASUS and it’s pretty cool! Compared to previous Republic of Gamers design this one is quite industrial looking, with just a dash of RGB, and the stand out feature is 4x fans total with the end of the card using a push/pull fan configuration to blast air through the heatsink and keep temperatures down. Also featuring a patented vapor chamber and increased metal fin density, this graphics card promises to deliver incredible RTX 5080 performance that’ll handle your most demanding gaming scenarios!

The 4th fan in the backplate is for push/pull airflow through the heatsink

ASTRAL is new, but it's part of the top-tier Republic of Gamers range

The design is elegant, with note of classic ASUS ROG style in the heatsink

ASUS graphics also allow for use of the free software package ASUS GPU TWEAK III which is great for getting the most out of your card, with it you can quickly adjust system parameters for overclocking, voltage adjustment and fan control too. The new integration with smartphone is excellent, and, this software gets better and better as you get further into the RTX 50 lifespan, with PRESETS updating that allow users to tweak settings for their exact model using expert settings.

These are just some of the new models expected in NZ soon, on January 31st, 2025, at 3am a range of awesome new RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 graphics cards will be available for order in the NVIDIA RTX Store at PB Tech New Zealand - and be sure to keep your eyes on Hardwired News for more of the latest & best!