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For people having bad 5090 Results (Hopefully this will help)
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For people having bad 5090 Results (Hopefully this will help)

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Hi all,

About a week ago I posted here complaining about terrible 3DMark scores on my RTX 5090, with gaming FPS consistently 20-30% below average.
Card: Gainward Phantom 5090 (non-OC / non-GS version).
I’ve had it since May 2025 and was never happy with the performance… until now.

For months I flashed every BIOS under the sun – Astral, GameRock, multiple Gigabyte versions, back to stock, etc. Nothing got me even to average scores. Steel Nomad graphics scores were embarrassingly low.

On top of that I was getting crackling/stuttering audio in multiple games and had just swapped monitors:
Old → LG Ultrawide 3440×1440
New → MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED 4K 240 Hz (arrived Saturday)

FPS was still absolute garbage at 4K, so I decided to nuke Windows again (this was my 4th clean install since May).

One of my main symptoms was a awful TimeSpy Score with my 5090 performing below a 4090.

Crap Scores:

https://www.3dmark.com/sn/9681189 (Steel Nomad)

https://www.3dmark.com/sn/9681009 (Steel Nomad)

This time I did things differently:

  1. Created the USB with official Microsoft Media Creation Tool instead of Rufus.
  2. During install I used the new ms-cxh:localonly command instead of the old OOBE\BYPASSNRO trick.
  3. Installed ONLY MSI Center for my X870E Carbon WIFI motherboard and let it handle ALL drivers (chipset, LAN, audio, etc.).
  4. Blocked Windows Update from installing any driver updates (paused updates, never let the queued driver packages apply).
  5. Used WinUtil + Winget as usual for apps.
  6. After everything was installed, I paused/un-paused Windows Update to clear the driver cache completely – no overwriting of MSI’s drivers.
  7. Flashed the Gigabyte XOC BIOS one last time via NVFLASH.
  8. Left everything 100% stock – no Afterburner, no Core Offset, no overclock, nothing.
  9. RE-Enabled 9950X3D iGPU in BIOS under UMA Auto and left it.

Booted into PUBG… immediate “whoa” moment. Smoothness was night and day.
Ran 3DMark Steel Nomad → graphics score now above average, actually beating most stock 5090 results.

After 6+ months of pain, countless Windows installs, DDU sessions (including audio drivers), near-RMA, I finally have a 5090 that performs better than average out of the box.

The only explanation I have: Windows Update was overwriting MSI’s optimised drivers with generic/incompatible ones, and for some reason this was tanking both GPU performance AND causing audio issues that further crippled frames.

Moral of the story:
If your 5090 (or any high-end card) is scoring/fps way below average:

  • Clean install Windows
  • Let OEM utilities only (MSI Center, Gigabyte Xtreme Tuner, etc.) install drivers
  • Block Windows Update drivers at all costs during the FIRST BOOT.
  • One of the installs will eventually “just work” – sounds stupid, but it happened to me.

Here’s my final Steel Nomad result running 100% stock Gigabyte OC BIOS, fresh MSI drivers, no Windows driver bullcrap:

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/59793564 (TimeSpy)

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/59793503 (TimeSpy)

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/145140246 (SteelNomad)

Hope this saves someone else months of frustration. God knows exactly what fixed it, but it’s finally running like the beast it’s supposed to be.

Cheers & thank you everyone with all the suggestions on how to solve this .