Our second group of non-RT benchmarks incorporates two driving games - F1 24 and Forza Horizon 5 - and the more cinematic Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, one of three game graphics of the year candidates for 2024. All demand a top graphics card to see them at their best, though F1 24 and Forza Horizon 5 players might also require high frame-rates to make the racing easier and more responsive.

If you're on a desktop-class browser, you can hover over the bar charts to see various metrics - including the best and worst five percent, one percent and 0.1 percent frame-rates. You can also click to see percentages, so you can get a better sense of how much faster or slower each graphics card is in a certain game.

F1 24

F1 24, Max Settings, All RT Features Off

With the game running at max settings but RT disabled, the rainy Bahrain circuit is reproduced at firmly HFR territory, with a 209fps average for the 5090. That's 26 percent faster than the 4090, 81 percent faster than the 3090 Ti and nearly 200 percent faster than the 2080 Ti.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5, Extreme Settings, 8x MSAA

Our second-favourite racing game for benchmarking purposes, Forza Horizon 5 is running here on extreme settings with 8x MSAA. There's a 28 percent advantage for the 5090 over 4090, a 92 percent boost against 3090 Ti and an almost 3x boost versus the 2080 Ti. It's interesting that both 4090 and 5090 are far from their power limits, drawing 283W and 362W respectively.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, High Settings

Hellblade 2 was one of our top three games of the year in 2024 when it came to graphics, with some incredible character and animation work and excellent use of effects that mirror real cameras. This is an Unreal Engine 5 title that uses software RT - Epic's Lumen - but there's no specific requirement for a DX12 Ultimate card with RT hardware. Here, we get a 29 percent improvement for the 5090 over the prior flagship (4090), a 91 percent uplift versus the fastest consumer card of two generations ago (3090 Ti) and a 3.5x multiplier versus the final generation to not include a XX90 model (2080 Ti).

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Analysis