With the new generation of GeForce GPUs, Asus is introducing the new ROG Astral series. Positioned at the top of Asus’s lineup, it inherits high-end features from previous ROG Strix models, including a dual BIOS, system fan control, a robust design, factory overclocking, and a large, top-notch cooler. It doesn’t just come with three but a total of four fans. However, this premium package comes at a significant price.
While the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 can be considered at least semi-professional cards due to their price and memory capacity, the more affordable RTX 5080 is specifically designed for demanding gamers. It is primarily aimed at 4K gaming, but with 16 GB of memory, it is also well-suited for applications and AI model processing.
A detailed breakdown of the new technologies introduced with these GPUs and their architecture has been written by Jan Olšan in the article Blackwell: GeForce RTX 5000 architecture and innovations. This article covers the individual chips used in Nvidia’s latest graphics cards, the introduction of DDR7 memory, cache improvements, updates to GPU compute units, changes to shaders, tensor core optimizations, and improved ray tracing units. The new cards also feature support for DisplayPort 2.1b and PCIe 5.0.
With the new generation of cards, the capabilities of DLSS are also advancing, which can now use Multi Frame Generation to generate up to three intermediate frames, and new is also the second generation of Nvidia Reflex with Frame Warp technology, which can adjust the movement of objects and the camera in rendered frames based on the most recent information from peripherals, which it receives only during or after the frame is rendered. Everything is described in more detail in the mentioned article.
At first glance, the card may not seem that large–until you notice the dual-slot bracket shrinking at the front. That’s when it becomes clear what a beast this GPU is. The cooler shroud is made of a massive metal frame, and once installed in a PC, it resembles a brutalist-style building more than any other piece of hardware.
The new version of GPU-Z 2.62.0 is now available for download on TechPowerUp and is fully compatible with the GeForce RTX 50 series. The screenshots show the Quiet BIOS, which has a power limit set at 360 W, with the option to increase it to 400 W. The Performance BIOS, on the other hand, has a fixed upper limit of 400 W, which cannot be increased further. Additionally, the two BIOS modes differ in their fan speed curve settings–Performance mode runs at higher fan speeds. However, this information cannot be directly read from GPU-Z.
HWiNFO extracts significantly more data from the card. It can even detect the secondary chip responsible for monitoring the VRM temperature.
