  We study the large $N$ limit of partition functions for 5d supersymmetric
gauge theories with fundamental matter. Depending on the matter content, we
find that the scaling behaviour at the leading order can be either $N^2$ or
$N^{\frac{3}{2}}$. The latter scaling reminds one of the 3d theories with
M-theory duals and we discuss how to extract this behaviour from the recently
proposed 3d theories associated with the compactification of 5d SCFTs on 2d
surfaces.
