DLSS 5 October Update: 25% Faster at 1440p on RTX Spark

Ever wondered if Nvidia's latest DLSS magic could actually make your games run noticeably faster without sacrificing visuals? The October update to DLSS 5—or DLSS Neural Rendering, or DLSS NR, whatever you want to call it—just dropped, and it's promising a big performance boost. I jammed the new model into the RTX Spark platform and saw a solid 25% speed increase at 1440p. Not bad, right?

First, a quick recap: DLSS 5 is Nvidia's latest neural rendering tech, and it's been officially released in exactly one game so far: NBA 2K27. But modders have already baked it into all sorts of games on various GPU architectures, so expect to see it popping up everywhere soon. The big news with this October update is that the new model is half as demanding on your hardware as the previous one—a nominal 30% performance hit instead of 60%. Nvidia achieved this by refining the training data and shrinking the model down to around 118 million parameters, making it roughly 24% smaller. That also means less VRAM usage—Nvidia cites a 20% reduction at 4K.

Of course, those are Nvidia's numbers. I got my hands on a preview version of the .dll files, specifically built for the RTX Spark hardware I'm testing (probably to stop us from leaking the new model early), and fired up NBA 2K27 on the Asus ProArt P16. The result? A 25% faster frame rate at 1440p compared to the previous DLSS 5 model. That's a meaningful jump, especially for laptops and mini PCs where every frame counts.

What does this mean for you? If you're rocking an RTX Spark machine—or any GPU that supports DLSS 5—this update should make high-refresh-rate gaming at 1440p more achievable without cranking down settings. The smaller model size also means less strain on your VRAM, which is great news for future games that hog memory. Plus, with modding communities already embracing DLSS 5, you might soon see these gains in your favorite titles, even if they don't officially support it.

But hold your horses: this is still a preview build, and the final version might differ. Also, DLSS 5 is still in its infancy—only NBA 2K27 has official support, and the RTX Spark platform itself is brand new and pricey. Still, the early signs are promising. If Nvidia keeps refining the model like this, we could be looking at a future where neural rendering is both faster and more accessible.

So, what do you think? Are you excited about these DLSS 5 gains, or are you waiting for more games to support it before jumping in? Will you be picking up an RTX Spark machine to try it out? Let us know in the comments!