RTX 5090 may be surprisingly svelte — twin-slot, twin-fan model on the way, says leaker

Nvidia’s 50-series GPUs are expected to arrive by October or November this year, just in time for the holiday season. As usual, we expect the company to release the flagship RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs first, showing the way with its Founders Edition (FE) models. However, rumors of a hulking 5090 FE design have been rebuffed by a well-regarded leaker, who says previously touted super-fat graphics card designs are inaccurate.

It was initially thought that the 5090 FE would be based on the unreleased 4090 Ti , taking up four slots inside a PC case. It would thus probably have a triple-PCB layout, with three fans interspersed throughout the GPU shroud, according to various sources. Now, popular leaker @kopite7kimi has denied the rumors on X , saying that the RTX 5090 FE will come with a twin-slot, twin-fan design.

If this new information is true, it makes the RTX 5090 a much slimmer design than the 4090 FE, which was delivered with a triple-slot cooling solution. Other AIB partners offer larger even 4090 designs that could take up almost four slots. A smaller and slimmer flagship GPU would be a welcome change after several generations of larger and larger GPUs. The problem of heavier graphics cards has come to the point that Gigabyte introduced a motherboard that can support 128-pound GPUs , but still didn’t solve the issue with the GPU itself cracking under its own massive weight.

The leaker doesn’t share information about whether the 5090 will have lower power consumption than the 4090, but they said that the new GPU’s cooling design will be more efficient. We wouldn’t be surprised if the 5090 turns out to require less power for its performance level. Nvidia has been at the forefront of AI chip development, and it powers the top three most efficient supercomputers as of May 2024. We would like to think that Nvidia’s developments in this sector would trickle down to its consumer and gaming business, allowing end-users to enjoy more power without requiring the largest possible PC cases.

However, the 5090’s size and specifications are just rumors, and Nvidia has neither confirmed nor denied any information. We will have to wait a few more weeks or even months until we can see whether the company is indeed making its top-end graphics card slimmer, or if it’s going full-steam ahead and giving us a full-fat four-slot GPU with three fans, three PCBs, and require over 600 watts for peak performance.