Nvidia & AMD’s New GPUs Are Set To Push PC VR Forward

Nvidia and AMD both announced their next generation PC graphics cards at CES 2025.

Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 50 series and AMD’s new Radeon RX 9070 series bring modest raw performance improvements alongside significantly enhanced neural upscaling, neural frame generation, and ray tracing capabilities.

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 50 Series

Nvidia announced the RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 PC graphics cards, the first consumer products to use its new Blackwell GPU architecture.

The RTX 50 series are the first consumer cards with GDDR7 VRAM, which offers 33% faster memory bandwidth compared to GDDR6X VRAM. Combined with the greater number of CUDA cores, this should result in 20-50% higher raw raster performance compared to the previous generation.

But raw raster performance isn’t Blackwell’s main focus. The new architecture also brings fourth-generation RT Cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores. Those RT Cores have a 2x ray triangle intersection rate for higher ray tracing performance, while the Tensor Cores enable the flagship feature of the new DLSS 4: Multi Frame Generation.

If you’re unfamiliar, DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is Nvidia’s neural upscaling and frame generation technology. It allows the GPU to render at a lower resolution and frame rate, with the image upscaled using machine learning and synthetic frames generated. The previous RTX 40 series introduced single frame generation, enabling an effective doubling of frame rate, similar to the Application Spacewarp and Motion Smoothing features of VR compositors. The new RTX 50 series now enables up to three intermediate frames, effectively quadrupling frame rate. However, DLSS frame generation isn’t supported in any VR game that we’re aware of, and results in increased latency compared to VR-specific frame extrapolation techniques.

Nvidia says the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 will arrive on January 30, priced at $950 and $2000 respectively, while RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti will launch in February at $550 and $750.

AMD’s RX 9070 & RX 9070 XT

AMD has released far fewer details on its next generation cards, RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT.

The company says the RX 9070 cards are intended to offer affordable performance, competing with Nvidia’s RTX 5070 rather than its higher end product. But it hasn’t released pricing yet, and nor has it revealed a specific release timeline beyond “Q1 2025”.

What we do know is that both cards feature AMD’s new RDNA 4 architecture and are built on a 4nm process, down from 5nm on the previous RX 7000 series. Further, they both have 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM. That’s more 4GB more than Nvidia’s RTX 5070, but at a slower speed.

Both cards also introduce AMD’s second-generation AI accelerators which power FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4), AMD’s answer to Nvidia’s DLSS 4. AMD hasn’t yet detailed the improvements of FSR 4, but like DLSS, it also isn’t supported by the majority of VR games.

PC VR Pushes Forward

Yes, some people use PC VR to play the same kind of graphically simplistic titles that are popular on Quest, such as Beat Saber, Gorilla Tag, and Walkabout Mini Golf, and these titles have been playable at sharp resolutions at maximum settings for years now.

But the magic of PC VR is that it can support high-fidelity realistic flight and racing simulators too, as well as detailed VRChat worlds populated by dozens of detailed avatars, and higher quality versions of AAA VR titles like Skydance’s Behemoth. Today, even the mighty RTX 4090 isn’t capable of running these experiences at an ideal resolution at maxed out settings. VR is uniquely demanding, owing to its stereo rendering, wide field of view, and strict intolerance for added latency.

SteamVR Saw Near-Record Usage In December

December 2024 saw the second highest percentage of Steam gamers using a VR headset ever, when adjusted for Chinese users.

As 4K per eye PC VR headsets like Shiftall’s MeganeX superlight and Pimax Dream Air are set to arrive in 2025, joining a market that includes 3K per eye headsets like Somnium VR1 and Pimax Crystal Light, PC VR enthusiasts will be crying out for the graphical horsepower to really take advantage of these resolutions. Nvidia is set to tailor to that at the high end, while AMD will offer affordable competition that could entice swathes of Quest owners to build a PC and see what SteamVR has to offer.