Nvidia’s RTX 4090 Founders Version has arrived and is primed for testing and benchmarks, on the brink of tackle the greatest graphics playing cards and lay declare to the pole place in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. How briskly can Ada Lovelace run, and the way a lot does she weigh? These are usually not questions you are presupposed to ask a woman! Disgrace on you. (2186g, in the event you actually need to know.)
Card dimensions are almost the identical because the earlier era RTX 3090 Founders Version, 305x136x61mm. The RTX 3090 Founders Version by the use of reference was 313x138x54mm (these are my measurements), so the 2 designs positively aren’t similar. Ada is outwardly 8mm shorter and 7mm thicker, although the 3-gram distinction in weight definitely will not be observed.
Together with a slight change in dimensions, the followers on the RTX 4090 Founders Version are a lot bigger. The “again” fan (on the facet with the bigger RTX 4090 brand) is 115mm in diameter, the place the identical fan on the 3090 FE was 110mm. The “entrance” fan (on the facet with with all of the fins and closest to the video ports) additionally measured 115mm in diameter on the 4090, in comparison with 110mm on the 3090 FE. Nevertheless it’s not simply the diameter which have modified, because the internal hub is smaller as nicely — 38mm diameter on 4090 vs 42mm on 3090. All advised, Nvidia says the brand new followers enhance airflow by 20%.
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We’re not going to stroll by way of the unboxing course of, because the embedded video will do a greater job in order for you extra element, however Nvidia clearly is not skimping on packaging. Suffice it to say that the RTX 4090 Founders Version is available in a brand new, bigger field with loads of padding to maintain it secure throughout transport.
Superficially, it is easy to return to the conclusion that nothing a lot has modified with the 4090 design in comparison with the 3090. The cardboard does have a bigger quantity, nonetheless, and there is a slight curvature to the silver sides (high and again, principally). That needs to be for aesthetic causes reasonably than one thing that can make the cardboard run cooler.
One fascinating tidbit is that Nvidia talked about at one level that the 4090 FE would come with a triple-8-pin to 16-pin energy adapter for these that do not have an ATX 3.0 energy provide with the brand new 12VHPWR 16-pin connector. Opening up the packaging, nonetheless, we discover a quad-8-pin to 16-pin adapter. You need to surprise if Nvidia was serious about going with a 600W TBP and determined to tone issues down, or if the additional connector is to supply overclocking headroom.
Elsewhere, the cardboard nonetheless comes with the same old triple DisplayPort and single HDMI video outputs. We’re frankly stunned that Nvidia caught with DP 1.4a and HDMI 2.1, reasonably than upgrading to DisplayPort 2.0. Besides, as we famous in our Intel Arc A770 evaluation, there aren’t any DisplayPort 2.0 displays but, and the specs have turn out to be a bit muddled. Intel opted for UHBR 10 — Extremely Excessive Bit Charge, 10 Gb/s per lane, 40 Gb/s most — on it is DP 2.0 ports, omitting each UHBR 13.5 and UHBR 20 help.
The RTX 4090 and different Ada Lovelace GPUs can nonetheless help 8K at 60 Hz, or 4K at 165 Hz, however they require DSC (Show Stream Compression) with 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 encoding to get there. UHBR 20 would have allowed as much as 8K and 92 Hz with uncompressed alerts and 8-bit coloration, or 74 Hz with 10-bit HDR coloration, and DSC may have pushed 8K and 120 Hz or increased. However once more, we want the displays and TVs earlier than that may actually matter, and which may not occur for a number of extra years.
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Here is a gallery of side-by-side pictures evaluating the RTX 3090 FE with the RTX 4090 FE. (Do not thoughts the mud on the RTX 3090 card; it has been well-loved over the previous two years!) It’s miles extra apparent in these photographs how the followers and dimensions of the playing cards have modified.
Now we have some further RTX 4090 graphics playing cards from AIB (add-in board) companions slated to reach within the close to future, together with an MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X. We’ll replace this text with further unboxing pictures and a video shortly, whereas we stay up for the precise launch date.
We’re not allowed to offer benchmarks or any indication of impartial efficiency testing but, although Nvidia has already shared a few of its personal benchmarks. Large ticket gadgets for the Ada Lovelace GPUs embrace help for the brand new DLSS 3 algorithm, over 50% extra GPU shaders, and different enhancements to the structure that might doubtlessly increase efficiency by 2X or extra — that is in keeping with Nvidia.
The launch date is about for October 12, with a beginning value of $1,599 for the RTX 4090 Founders Version. We are able to solely hope that provide is enough to maintain scalpers from ruining the launch occasion. In the meantime, in the event you’re not already working an 850W or higher PSU, it is likely to be time for an improve must you plan on including an RTX 4090 to your PC. Examine again subsequent week for the total evaluation.
