Nvidia's Jensen Huang confirmed for CES keynote, RTX 5080 and 5090 reveal expected

Why it matters: It appears that the rumors are true. Nvidia has confirmed that Jensen Huang will deliver the CES keynote speech in January. It will mark the first time that the CEO has appeared at the event since 2019, suggesting something big is in store: the RTX 5000 series desktop graphics cards.

Nvidia SVP Jeff Fisher has taken over the presenting duties at CES since Huang introduced the RTX 2060 more than five years ago. Fisher has unveiled several products during his time, including the RTX 3060, RTX 4070 Ti, and, most recently, the RTX 4000 Super series.

At 6.30 pm on January 6, the day before CES begins, Huang will deliver a keynote at the event. The announcement of the keynote is an official one from CES rather than from Nvidia, so Team Green has yet to drop any clues about the contents of Huang's presentation.

"We are thrilled to welcome Jensen Huang as a keynote speaker at CES 2025," said Gary Shapiro, CEO, CTA. "Jensen is a true visionary in the tech industry. His insights and innovations improve the world, enhance the economy, and will inspire our CES audience."

Rumors that Nvidia would reveal the RTX 5000-series Blackwell cards at CES have been circulating since July, when prolific leaker kopite7kimi made the prediction.

I think we won't see RTX 50 until CES.

– kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) July 22, 2024

In keeping with tradition, Nvidia is expected to unveil and launch its two high-end desktop cards first: the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. There have been plenty of reports about both products' specs, the latest involving the RTX 5080. It's claimed that the card will offer both 16GB and 24GB variants, which is similar to what Nvidia did with the RTX 4080 (12GB and 16GB) before it "unlaunched" the 12GB version and rebranded it as the RTX 4070 Ti. The 5080 is also said to feature 10,752 CUDA cores and have a 400W TDP.

As for the RTX 5090, the flagship will reportedly offer a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM on a 512-bit memory bus and 21,760 CUDA cores. It's also said to consume 600W and feature Ultra-High Bit Rate (UHBR20) DisplayPort 2.1a.

GeForce RTX 5090
PG144/145-SKU30
GB202-300-A1
21760FP32
512-bit GDDR7 32G
600W

– kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) September 26, 2024

There were rumors that the RTX 5090 might feature two 16-pin power connectors, but it's now believed to use a single 16-pin 12V-2x6 connector – though board partners might release overclocked editions that require two connectors.

We still don't know how much the Blackwell series will cost, of course, but it's probably a good idea to start saving now. Whether Nvidia has learned lessons from the Lovelace criticism remains to be seen, but with AMD confirming it won't be competing with its rival in the high-end segment, Nvidia can charge what it wants, safe in the knowledge that people will pay.