RTX 5090 Defeated by 6K Resolution, Even on DLSS Performance Mode
Samsung’s new Odyssey 6K resolution, 330Hz gaming monitor is doing the rounds for reviews, and by all measures, it’s a stunning display. The only problem is, no graphics card on the planet can run it at that resolution without a major drop in frame rate. Even the venerable RTX 5090 falls to its knees trying to render that many pixels.
The problem with 6K is that it’s more than 150% the resolution of 4K. It’s over 21 million pixels, versus the roughly 8 million for 4K resolution, which is already more than double 1440p and four times 1080p. Combine that with ray tracing, ultra-detailed textures, and all the other bells and whistles of modern AAA games, and even heavy-handed upscaling can’t save the best GPUs in the world.
TechSpot’s testing with an RTX 5090 and a new Samsung 6K monitor found that when testing it at its full resolution, there were very few games that they could even get close to 60 frames per second.
To be fair, Cyberpunk Path Tracing has been breaking GPUs for years already.
Credit: CD Projekt Red
In Cyberpunk 2077, with the game set to Ray Tracing Overdrive and DLSS in Performance mode, the RTX 5090 managed an average of just 42 frames per second. Switching to the Ultra preset got it to 72, and this doesn’t account for frame generation, but it shows how much even high-end cards can struggle at this resolution.
It was even worse in Crimson Desert. There, with DLSS set to Quality and Ray Reconstruction, the testers only hit 29fps. Switching to Balanced DLSS and dropping Ray Reconstruction got it up to 66, but with a noticeable drop in shadow quality. If you’re playing at 6K, you don’t want any compromise, right?
Even the well-optimized, fast-paced Doom: The Dark Ages sat at just 43fps at 6K with DLSS on performance, with Ultra Nightmare and Path Tracing enabled. That is absolutely not the kind of frame rate this game was designed for.
A few games on the test list did break 60fps, but not by much, and always with the most heavy-handed upscaling enabled. Although DLSS has come a long way, I’m not sure doubling the pixels and then having to use more extreme upscaling will look much better than just playing at lower resolution.
But all of this does raise the question. How is anyone going to ever play at 6K? If the only card that can conceivably do it in 2026 can’t really, and it already costs close to $5,000, it’s going to be years, and many product generations, before this is anything but a niche within a niche.
