Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5090 is the most powerful consumer graphics card you can buy in 2025. One of the main reasons it costs $2,000 is that it has no competition from AMD and Intel. However, even if you can afford to spend that much money on this flagship graphics card, you have to be very careful because there are some important factors to consider before you put it inside your case. Otherwise, you may have to spend even more on additional components to enjoy all the performance gains it brings to the table.

4 The size of your PC case

Only the Founders Edition will fit in most mini-ITX cases

Nvidia somehow managed to make the RTX 5090 Founders Edition a two-slot graphics card, despite it being more power-hungry. This is great news for people who own small form factor PCs, as the RTX 5090 FE would comfortably fit inside them. However, most third-party air-cooled RTX 5090 graphics cards take at least three slots or more, meaning you'll at least need a mid-tower case to make sure you don't choke your GPU.

Take a look at the RTX 5090 Astral from Asus, for example. It's a 3.8-slot behemoth of a graphics card. There's no way it'll fit in some of the best mini-ITX PC cases like the Cooler Master NR200P Max and Lian Li Q58. Even if you can mod your small form factor PC case to make room for the RTX 5090, it's going to run quite a bit hotter than it would in a mid-tower or full-tower airflow case.

3 Your PSU's wattage

A 1000W PSU is the bare minimum

The RTX 4090 required at least an 850W PSU since it had a thermal design power (TDP) of 450W. Unfortunately, the RTX 5090 is even more power-hungry, with a TDP of 600W. So, to provide adequate power to all the components in your PC, which includes your CPU, RAM, motherboard, and hard drives, you'll need at least a 1000W PSU. In some cases, even that might not be enough.

For example, Palit recommends a 1200W PSU for its high-end RTX 5090 GameRock OC. This may be necessary if you plan to overlock your graphics card to get even better frame rates in your games—which is my many people buy beefy aftermarket graphics cards with three (or more) fans. So, if you have an 850W PSU that you purchased along with your 4090 build, you'll need to set aside some money for a new power supply.

2 The 12VHPWR cable

You need a 12VHPWR cable rated for 600W

Not all 16-pin (12+4) GPU power supply cables are the same! Nvidia introduced this relatively new power cable alongside the RTX 4090 back in 2022, and any 16-pin power cable would work with it because its TDP is 450W. However, as I mentioned above, the RTX 5090 can draw up to 600W of power, and you need a cable that can handle that wattage.

If you have an ATX 3.0 power supply, you should be good because you'll find these cables in the box. Otherwise, you'll need to purchase a 12VHPWR adapter or a third-party cable kit from CableMod. More importantly, you need to make sure the cable you buy will support the power supply you have; you shouldn't use a cable kit that's designed for Corsair's power supplies with a Cooler Master PSU.

1 Your current CPU

If it isn't fast enough, it'll bottleneck the RTX 5090

If you want to get the most performance out of the new RTX 5090, you need the fastest CPU you can currently buy, which is the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Even if you have a slightly older chip like the 7800X3D or the Intel i9 14900k, you won't get the frame rates NVIDIA claims. You'll be limited to about 90-95 percent of its performance. Anything older, and you're pretty much bottlenecking your GPU. Because your CPU isn't fast enough to keep up with the RTX 5090, the GPU usage will be heavily limited, especially when you play games at high frame rates.

More importantly, an RTX 5090 is only truly worth it if you plan to run games at 4K resolution. Even at 1440p with the fastest gaming CPU, the 9800X3D, the 5090 is only 12 percent faster than the 4090 on average, according to benchmarks by Hardware Unboxed. And at 1080p, the RTX 5090 barely offers any improvement. So, if you're a competitive gamer who has a 1440p/360Hz monitor or better, do not upgrade from the RTX 4090 before you upgrade your CPU first.

You need the right hardware to get the most out of the RTX 5090

At $2,000, the RTX 5090 is already too expensive, but if you don't have high-end hardware in your gaming PC already, you'll have to spend even more money to get ideal performance. It doesn't matter if your PC can handle the RTX 4090 because the 5090 is even faster and more powerful, and as a result, you need a higher wattage PSU, the fastest processor, the right power cables, and enough space in your case to mount it. Otherwise, you'll end up bottlenecking your shiny new graphics card, and that's just a waste of your hard-earned money.