The RTX PRO 5500 uses the same GB202 configuration as the RTX 5090: 170 SMs and 21,760 CUDA cores
It is not a complete rebadge, however; it comes with a different board, 84GB of ECC memory, a narrower bus, and pro features
Leaks and a board partner suggest GB202 is shifting from the 5090 to RTX PRO cards, though Nvidia denies discontinuation
Nvidia insists the GeForce RTX 5090 has not been discontinued, but its GPU keeps turning up elsewhere, with the latest emerging as the RTX PRO 5500, a workstation card that US reseller SHI Government Solutions listed recently at $17,999. That overlap has fueled claims that Nvidia is simply rebadging its gaming flagship as a pro card to maximize profits while abandoning gamers. The reality, however, might be more nuanced, and arguably more consequential for anyone still hoping to buy a 5090. The same chip in a different card with a very different price tag? On paper, the RTX 5090 and RTX 5500 Pro have almost everything that matters for compute. Both use the GB202 die with 170 of its 192 streaming multiprocessors enabled, giving each 21,760 CUDA cores, 680 Tensor cores, and 96 MB of L2 cache. It would therefore not be a far cry to suggest that Nvidia essentially took the RTX 5090, slapped on higher-capacity memory, and launched it as the RTX 5500 Pro. There are, however, some differences in the boards around that silicon. As we reported when the card appeared in September 2026, the RTX PRO 5500 packs 84GB of ECC GDDR7 memory using 28 3GB modules split across both sides of the board, compared to 32GB on the 5090. It runs that memory over a narrower, slower interface, so bandwidth falls to 1,398GB/s from the 5090’s 1,792GB/s, a 22% cut. The GPU is rated for 600W rather than 575W, can be split into two isolated 42GB instances, ships with professional drivers, and is built for rack-mounted workstations with blower or liquid cooling. So one could argue that no 5090 is being pulled off a shelf and relabeled. What the two products share here is the silicon, and it’s the scarce part at a time when one can’t find an RTX 5090 anywhere close to MSRP on shelves. Here is the detail that makes the 5500 more than just another workstation card. Of the GB202 products in Tom’s Hardware’s comparison , only the RTX 5090 and the RTX PRO 5500 use the 170-SM configuration. The RTX PRO 6000 uses a higher bin at 188 SMs, the 6000D uses 156, and the RTX PRO 5000 uses 110. By that measure, the 5500 is the first pro card built to draw on exactly the dies that previously had one main home: the 5090. The economics of where those dies go are stark: The RTX 5090 launched at $1,999. In October 2026, Reuters reported that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent had ordered more than three million RTX PRO 5500s at about $11,400 each, while the SHI listing puts its MSRP at $17,999. The same GPU configuration is worth roughly 5. 7 times its gaming launch price in a Chinese bulk order, and about nine times at that US list price. An extra 52GB of GDDR7 memory is not cheap in the current memory market, but it does not come anywhere close to explaining a gap of that size. Nvidia therefore earns substantially more profit per die in a 5500 than in a 5090, making it a no-brainer to supply the former rather than the latter…