Nvidia’s Ampere-powered $1,499 GeForce RTX 3090 is the last word price-is-no-object graphics card. It chews up video games and spits out frames for breakfast, as we lined in depth in our comprehensive Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition review. You want a pixel-packed monitor to get probably the most out of it, although—like a 3440×1440 ultrawide show.

Here’s the factor although: Most players shouldn’t purchase the GeForce RTX 3090. Even at full 4K, it’s solely 10 to 15 % quicker than the $700 GeForce RTX 3080, which prices lower than half as a lot. The positive aspects are even much less at 1440p decision, the place your CPU and different components of Nvidia’s GPU structure grow to be the efficiency bottleneck, reasonably than uncooked shading energy. Sometimes, the GeForce RTX 3090 isn’t tangibly quicker than the RTX 3080 at 1440p regardless of its steep worth premium. This card is best suited to inventive professionals who can make the most of its huge 24GB reminiscence buffer. The fearsome gaming efficiency is extra of a pleasant additional for some off-hours playtime.

Because 3440×1440 ultrawide decision primarily splits the distinction between 4K and 1440p, we solely noticed modest positive aspects within the 15-percent vary in comparison with the extra inexpensive RTX 3080. Again: Most players ought to persist with the GeForce RTX 3080. That being stated, some folks demand the absolute best efficiency, worth be damned, so we determined to publish our hands-on RTX 3090 3440×1440 ultrawide benchmarks, identical to we did with the GeForce RTX 3080.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 3440×1440 ultrawide benchmarks

We performed our assessments on the identical $550, 144Hz Nixeus EDG34S monitor as earlier than. It’s an impressive worth for the worth, albeit a bit sparse with additional quality-of-life options. While it formally helps solely AMD’s FreeSync Premium adaptive sync expertise, you’ll be able to manually activate G-Sync in Nvidia’s control panel, and it really works like a allure. You’ll want to make use of the monitor’s on-screen show to activate adaptive sync first, nonetheless. All in all, it’s an awesome accomplice for Nvidia’s “BFGPU.”

Note that these benchmarks don’t come from the Nvidia Founders Edition utilized in our preliminary GeForce RTX 3090 testing. Instead, they’re culled from the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio, an overclocked gamer-centric model of the cardboard that’s bristling with followers, heatsinks, and loads of RGB lighting. Read our full review of the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio here.

Here’s a listing of what’s inside our GPU check system, which was constructed to reduce potential bottlenecking in different elements, placing the total brunt of the assessments on the graphics card itself:

• Intel Core i7-8700Ok processor ($300 on Amazon) overclocked to 5GHz all-core
• EVGA CLC 240 closed-loop liquid cooler ($105 on Amazon)
• Asus Maximus X Hero motherboard
• 64GB HyperX Predator RGB DDR4/2933 ($355 on Amazon)
• EVGA 1200W SuperNova P2 energy provide ($352 on Amazon)
• Corsair Crystal 570X RGB case, with entrance and prime panels eliminated and an additional rear fan put in for improved airflow
• 2x 500GB Samsung 860 EVO SSDs ($70 every on Amazon)

Brad Chacos/IDG

Each sport is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark on the highest doable graphics presets except in any other case famous, with VSync, body charge caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, together with another vendor-specific applied sciences like FidelityFX. We’ve additionally enabled temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to push these playing cards to their limits when it’s obtainable.

We didn’t embrace the legendary GeForce GTX 1080 Ti,  as our earlier benchmarks present it acting on a par with the RTX 2080 in most video games. It’s a hair slower in correctly optimized DX12 or Vulkan video games.