ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32GB OC Edition review: Great performance at an eye-watering price

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs have been out for a while now and here’s the good news: it looks like supply has stablised somewhat and even the flagship RTX 5090 has been easier to find at local retail and web-stores like Techyard. The even better news – according to Techyard’s price listing – is that prices for some RTX 5090 models have even come down a little. For instance, the Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming OC 32GB that I’m reviewing was going for a mind-boggling S$5,999 less than a month ago. The same card is now going for S$5,399. Of course, it’s a far cry from NVIDIA’s S$3,320 RRP but I guess this is the new GPU world order that we are living in – no doubt made worse by the current and volatile global tariff situation.

In any case, if you’re looking for an RTX 5090 GPU and have $5,400 to spare then this Astral card should be at the top of your shopping list. The shape and form of the Astral GeForce RTX 5090 is completely identical to its slower sibling, the Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Gaming OC 16GB  that I’ve have reviewed previously (read it here). The Astral is, in my opinion, really the pinnacle of graphics card designs by ROG. From the additional fourth fan that improves cooling (over its ROG RTX 4090 predecessor), to the phase-change thermal pad that’s akin to liquid metal, and protective coating on the PCB (that protects it against short circuits caused by moisture or dust), just to name a few, the Astral GeForce RTX 5090 is a remarkable card.

But that said, the card is huge and occupies 3.8 slots, almost double that of the RTX 5090 Founders Edition (read our review). It’s also immensely heavy, thanks to an ultra-rigid metal frame and backplate. Now let’s take a look at the card’s performance.

Gaming performance

To benchmark the ROG Astral card, I used the same list of games used to test the RTX 5090 Founders Edition (FE). I’ve also switched the card BIOS to “P” mode, ensuring the card’s fastest settings are used. It’s also the only third-party RTX 5090 card that we got to review since the RTX 50 Series’ launch, a nod to just how scarce these cards were initially. So our comparisons will be made against the RTX 5090 FE card. Unlike many of AIB partners’ cards, NVIDIA’s own Founders Edition are not overclocked and so makes for the best reference card as a comparison point.

We are also using the same test rig that was used to benchmark the GeForce RTX 5090 FE and comes with the following specifications:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• ROG Crosshair X870E Hero
• Samsung 990 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM 4K Gaming Monitor

My game list includes a mixture of old and recent games to test the Astral RTX 5090’s performance, and while the list isn’t exhaustive by any measure there are enough different game engines and APIs variety to give us an idea of broader performance trends.

While it's the 4K performance numbers that we'll be focusing on, because I can't imagine anyone spending S$5,399 on a beast of a card to play games at resolutions lower than that. But just for our own reference, I've included results from 1080p and 1440p as well.

In real-world gaming performances at 1440p and 2160p (4K), the ROG Astral card consistently outperforms the Founders Edition reference card. Which isn’t surprising, considering that it does have a faster boost clock speed. What is interesting is how the Astral RTX 5090 outperforms the NVIDIA RTX 5090 FE card by pretty sizeable margins at rasterisation – especially at 4K. This runs counter to past reviews, where AIB partners' cards typically run just marginally faster than NVIDIA's own FE cards.

Running Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at full settings including ray tracing but with DLSS 4 turned on (and running Frame Generation 2x), both cards run pretty close to each other although the Astral RTX 5090 still continues to run ahead of the FE card.

Cooling performance is the real differentiator when comparing custom cards from AIB partners. With a higher boost clock right out of the box, it’s no surprise that these cards’ GPU chips draw more power than NVIDIA's reference Founders Edition card. It's also no surprise to see the ROG Astral card, with more fans and RGB lights, drawing more power. But despite the latter, it still managed to run at a significantly lower temperature than the Founders Edition card. That counts for something and is a very good testament to the great job the ROG engineers have done here.

Final thoughts

Let's first address the elephant in the room: pricing. At S$5,399, the ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32GB OC Edition's price tag is undeniably eye-watering. High-end PC gaming has certainly reached a point of extravagance in recent years, fuelled largely by the insatiable demand for flagship GPUs – first from cryptocurrency miners, and now from AI developers.

Yet, credit where it's due: ROG has genuinely delivered with its new Astral range of graphics cards, especially this RTX 5090 variant. Price and power draw aside, the card's outstanding performance and impressive thermal efficiency place it firmly at the forefront of this generation's RTX 5090 lineup. If you're already invested in the ROG ecosystem with a Maximus or Crossfire motherboard, the Astral RTX 5090 is an obvious pairing. Plus, it's arguably the most stylish premium RTX 5090 card currently available.

The ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32GB OC Edition is available at Techyard for $5,399.

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