GeForce NOW Gets An RTX 5080 Boost And Its Games Library Is About To Explode
In what NVIDIA is pitching as its GeForce NOW platform's biggest update yet, the game streaming service is making the jump to Blackwell with the infusion of GeForce RTX 5080-class GPUs in the cloud, enabling AI-powered features like DLSS 4 multi-frame generation to deliver game resolutions of up to 5K at 120 frames per second.
"Bringing the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, one of the world’s most important computer graphics innovations, to GeForce NOW represents the biggest leap in cloud gaming ever," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "With Blackwell, GeForce NOW offers even more stunning graphics, the fastest frame rates and negligible latency to turn any device into a high-quality gaming rig that rivals nearly every other product on the market today."
The major benefit of GeForce NOW is that gamers don't have to invest in a powerful PC to play the latest AAA games at high settings. It's been a few years since we tested the service in depth—back when it was still rocking GeForce RTX 3080-class GPUs—but even then we were impressed at how well it works.
GeForce NOW continues to gain traction, helped in part by the current GPU landscape. Back in January, GeForce NOW tiers were actually selling out amid soaring demand, as higher end GPUs were either hard to find in stock or overpriced at retail (or both).
The upgrade to Blackwell has the potential to attract even more users. In addition to paving the way for gaming at up to 5K at 120 fps, NVIDIA says the upgrade adds support for up to 360 fps at 1080p with its Reflex technology, with click-to-pixel response times as low as 30 milliseconds.
"With the introduction of GeForce RTX 5080-class GPUs, the GeForce NOW Ultimate membership tier will deliver a stunning 62 teraflops of compute performance and a massive 48GB frame buffer, which enables AI-enhanced gaming experiences and prepares the platform for the future of AI in gaming," NVIDIA says.
This will benefit the native GeForce NOW app on Steam Deck too, with framerates set to jump from 60 to 90 fps.
A New Cinematic-Quality Streaming Mode And Expanded Games Library
NVIDIA's also touting expanded broadband and mobile partner network expansions in a continued effort to slay latency, which is arguably the most important factor for game streaming. In addition, NVIDIA is promising a "noticeable leap in graphics fidelity" with the addition of a new Cinematic-Quality Streaming (CQS) mode.
This entails a suite of technologies powered by Blackwell, including support for the YUV color model with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling and 10-bit HDR, AV1 encoders for smooth streaming, new heads-up display sharpness and AI-powered video filters (on select games), automatic detection of a laptop's display resolution, and bitrates of up to 100Mbps.
Additionally, NVIDIA announced that its games library is set to double to over 4,500 titles with the launch of Install-to-Play titles.
"Install-to-Play games are downloaded directly to cloud storage, mirroring the experience of having them on a local PC. GeForce NOW Ultimate and Performance members will receive 100GB of single-session cloud storage for Install-to-Play games at no additional cost to their membership," NVIDIA says.
The Blackwell upgrade will begin rolling out to GeForce NOW Ultimate members in Septembers. What about pricing? NVIDIA is keeping it the same—GeForce NOW Ultimate is staying at $19.99 per month or $99.99 for six months, with access to RTX 5080 servers.
