Nvidia says its monstrous $1,500 GeForce RTX 3090 delivers “the ultimate gaming experience.” That’s very true. You may even sport at 8K—not 4K, 8K—with some titles on this so-called “BFGPU.”
You in all probability shouldn’t purchase it if all you do is sport, although. Unless you’re a deep-pocketed fanatic who doesn’t thoughts spending lavishly for the best possible efficiency potential, the staggeringly powerful $700 GeForce RTX 3080 presents a lot better bang-for-buck for pure players. Nvidia really calls the RTX 3080 its flagship gaming GPU, regardless that the RTX 3090 presents extra uncooked horsepower.
But when you’re knowledgeable who might save actual cash by creating movies or churning by GPU-intensive duties at a massively sooner clip, the GeForce RTX 3090 actually shines—particularly when you can benefit from its huge 24GB reminiscence capability. Nvidia additionally says this card delivers “Titan-class performance,” and that is no exaggeration. The GeForce RTX 3090 will completely soften your face (and your render occasions) in lots of content material creation duties, toppling each the last-gen RTX Titan in addition to AMD’s creator-beloved Radeon VII. Oh, and at $1,500, the GeForce RTX 3090 prices a full $1,000 much less than the RTX Titan it replaces in all however identify.
If you want the final word graphics card for each work and play, Nvidia’s BFGPU tramples the competitors. Let’s dig into Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition.
Editor’s word: This complete assessment of the GeForce RTX 3090 goes longer than most because it’s good for rather more than simply 4K gaming—we dive into 8K benchmarks and prosumer duties, too. Check out Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 tested: 5 key things you need to know for high-level takeaways of this in-depth data. And you possibly can use this desk of contents to hop between the varied sections of this assessment.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 specs and options
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090 is constructed utilizing the identical next-gen “Ampere” GA102 graphics processor because the GeForce RTX 3080, but it surely’s filled with extra of every thing—extra CUDA cores, extra RT and tensor cores, extra SMs, extra reminiscence, an even bigger reminiscence bus, you identify it. Check out our RTX 3080 review for a deeper have a look at Ampere’s most important architectural modifications, as we received’t be rehashing these GPU-level technical particulars right here. You may discover extra data about how the brand new RTX 30-series GPUs stacks up towards the earlier technology in our GeForce RTX 30-series vs. RTX 20-series spec comparison.
Here’s a high-level have a look at the GeForce RTX 3090’s insides:
- CUDA cores: 10,496
- Boost clock: 1.7GHz
- Memory: 24GB GDDR6X
- Memory bus: 384-bit
- Memory bandwidth: 936 GBps
- RT cores: 82 (2nd-gen)
- Tensor cores: 328 (Third-gen)
- NVLink SLI: Yes
- PCIe: Gen 4
- HDMI: 2.1
- HDCP: 2.3
- Display connectors: 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4
- Length: 12.3 inches
- Width: 5.4 inches
- Height: 3-slot
- Maximum GPU temp: 93
- Graphics card energy: 350W
- Recommended energy provide: 750W
- Power connectors: 2x 8-pin (with equipped 12-pin adapter)
By comparability, the RTX 3080 packs 68 SMs and 8,704 CUDA cores. That offers the GeForce RTX 3090 a 20-percent benefit in uncooked specs, although it’s value noting that it’s not 20 % sooner in each workload. The GeForce RTX 3080 presents roughly 85 to 90 % of the RTX 3090’s 4K gaming efficiency at below half the fee, as you’ll see in our benchmarks later.
The upgraded RT and tensor cores in Ampere GPUs assist with enjoying ray traced video games at 1440p and 4K decision, assuaging a priority with the RTX 20-series. But Nvidia’s new-look cores could make an much more tangible distinction for creators. Several inventive purposes now help Nvidia’s OptiX expertise, which lets them faucet into the specialised capabilities of RT and tensor cores to hurry up duties. In addition to the uncooked denoising and ray tracing pace boosts in rendering duties, the 2nd-gen RT cores contained in the RTX 3090 now help {hardware} acceleration for ray-traced movement blur, and purposes can now help Nvidia’s DLSS expertise to hurry up their real-time visualizations. The D5 Render software for architects already helps DLSS.
Two specs specifically ought to make professionals drool, although: The SLI connector, and the 24GB of GDDR6X reminiscence.
Taking on Titans.
Nvidia teamed up with Micron to create GDDR6X, the ultra-fast new reminiscence within the RTX 3080 and 3090. It makes use of superior “PAM4” signaling expertise that may ship as much as 4 potential values per cycle, fairly than the same old two. That lets GDDR6X transfer knowledge twice as quick as earlier incarnations. Again, learn our RTX 3080 review for deeper Ampere particulars.
The RTX 3090’s mammoth 24GB capability is the true draw for professionals. Creators want extra capability than normal gaming-class graphics playing cards present once they’re modifying 8K movies or processing different duties. More VRAM helps AI and analytics execs deal with bigger knowledge units.
The 16GB of HBM2 inside AMD’s Radeon VII helped it win over creators greater than players throughout its temporary lifespan. The GeForce RTX 3090 presents 8GB extra capability. While HBM2 helped the Radeon VII hit an enormous 1TB/s reminiscence bandwidth, GDDR6X’s advances assist the RTX 3090 hit a blistering 936GB/s. By distinction, the RTX 3080 packs in solely 10GB of GDDR6X.
Prying off a canopy reveals the RTX 3090’s NVLink connector.
The GeForce RTX 3090 can be the one RTX 30-series graphics card outfitted with an NVLink connector, which helps transfer knowledge between a pair of RTX 3090 playing cards in a multi-GPU configuration to the tune of 112.5GB/s. SLI is dead for gamers—Nvidia received’t even provide SLI profiles in its drivers past 2020—however it is a vital inclusion for creators and software program builders who can make the most of a number of linked GPUs for enhanced software efficiency.
The days of rigs filled with 4 high-end graphics playing cards could also be numbered although, particularly when you use an ordinary PC case. Nvidia’s BFGPU wants a big-ass cooler to tame it.
Next web page: RTX 3090 Founders Edition design