Nvidia's RTX 40 series graphics cards will be available in late 2022, not exactly a long time ago, but many PC gamers are wondering when the next generation of Blackwell cards will be released

Now, hardware-focused YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead is reporting that sources at Nvidia say the final decision may rest with GPU rival AMD

"Blackwell is poised to launch in Q4 2024 if we want," the source is quoted as saying (italics emphasis courtesy of Moore's Law is Dead)" Whether we do so depends on how Ada (RTX 40 series cards) sales are doing and how competitive we believe RDNA 4 (AMD's next generation Radeon GPU) will be during the holiday shopping season"

Since AMD's RDNA 4 is rumored to be targeting the mid-range segment of the market, it is not clear how much of a threat it actually poses to Nvidia's high-end offerings However, assuming the quote is legitimate, it sounds like the company is aiming to keep its options open

Even if Nvidia does not launch in 2024, it seems unlikely that gamers will have to wait much longer But no matter what," the source continued, "we are currently planning to make a big announcement about the RTX 5000's efficiency at CES in 2025"

Given that the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is held every January, the RTX-50 series cards are expected to be released in Given that the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is held every January, the RTX-50 series cards are likely to appear in the first quarter of 2025 at the latest, if plans are not changed

Sources also give some clues about the raw power of the Blackwell architecture "In terms of performance, Blackwell's rasterization performance gains over Ada will not be as impressive as those from Ampere [RTX 30] to Ada [RTX 40] However, RTX 4090 has been reduced by more than 10%, so it is possible to "feel" a similar uplift in 5090 if the threat is felt"

That may seem a bit disappointing given the underwhelming launch of the RTX40, but as our sister site TechRadar points out, consumer graphics cards probably won't be Nvidia's bread and butter for much longer Thanks to the generative AI boom, demand for Nvidia's silicon is rising quickly in a much more profitable area

If the current AI gold rush is not a false dawn, Nvidia may end up getting out of gaming altogether in the next few years So perhaps we should be thankful for the RTX 5090 roadmap, even if it is not the graphics breakthrough that gamers ultimately dream of