The day is finally here... NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card has been unleashed, with the first embargo NDA allowing GPU reviewers across the world to reveal their GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition review... and man, what a graphics card it is.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition has so many new things going on inside of it, I don't think anyone is going to be able to cover everything in a single review. We have a new GPU architecture, new Streaming Multiprocessors, 4th Generation Tensor Cores, Optical Flow, 3rd Generation RT Cores, Shader Execution Reordering (SER), DLSS 3, NVIDIA Studio, and AV1 encoders... and that my friends, is just for starters.
Inside, the new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture arrives in the form of the AD102-300 GPU, which packs
NVIDIA is all about ray tracing -- for obvious reasons -- with its new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, and all of the upcoming RTX 40 series GPUs, but not all gamers use ray tracing. Over the coming months, I'll be tweaking our benchmark runs to include more games with ray tracing, and especially DLSS 3, given that there's so much untapped potential inside of Ada.
There is a huge injection of virtually everything inside of the new GeForce RTX 4090, with NVIDIA cramming in an incredible 16384 CUDA cores (up from the 10752 CUDA cores inside of the RTX 3090 Ti, and up from the puny 4352 CUDA cores inside of the RTX 2080 Ti). We have the same 24GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit memory bus providing over 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, and a LOT of overclocking potential on that AD102 GPU.
NVIDIA has claims of "4x RTX 3090 Ti" performance with its new RTX 4090, but you'll see none of that shiz here in my review. Yes, there are instances where performance is truly mind-f***ing-blowing, but 4x performance requires a particular game, particular update, ray tracing enabled, DLSS 3 enabled... most gamers won't be doing that, at least not yet.
Cyberpunk 2077 and Flight Simulator were two of the games NVIDIA suggested and pushed during its marketing for Ada Lovelace and the new GeForce RTX 4090, but these two games are part of my benchmark runs anyway so off I went. Cyberpunk 2077 and Flight Simulator can both enjoy 2-3x the performance at 4K, but when you're gaming at 8K... man, those performance increases are seriously nice to see.
HDMI 2.1 debuted on the RTX 30 series = 4K 120Hz and 8K 60Hz through a single cable, but the next-gen DisplayPort 2.0 standard (which handles a huge 4K 240Hz and 8K 120Hz through a single DP2.0 cable) isn't present here on the new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card (or any of the RTX 40 series graphics cards). Very, very disappointing, NVIDIA.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition will start from $1599, and is available October 12 worldwide where you'd usually find Founders Edition graphics card.
August Ada King, Countess of Lovelace aka Ada Lovelace was born on 10 December 1815 passing away on 27 November 1852 and was an English mathematician and writer, mostly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Machine.
Ada was the first to recognize that the machine had applications and uses beyond its pure calculation, publishing the first algorithm intended to be used by the machine... and because of this, Ada Lovelace is regarded as the first computer programmer.
In 1835, Ada married William King, and in 1838 King was made Earl of Lovelace... which is how Ada became the Countess of Lovelace.
Between 1842 and 1843, Ada translated an article by Luigi Menabrea, an Italian military engineer, about the Analytical Engine, helping it along with an elaborate set of notes which she simply called "Notes". These notes might not seem important when you're reading about them now, but they're important when it comes to the history of computers, which most consider being the first computer program -- a computer algorithm that was designed to be carried out by a machine.
Ada also had a vision of the capabilities of computers in the future, beyond simple calculations and number-crunching. Babbage used to only focus on the capabilities of computers at the time, meanwhile, Ada had a "poetical science" mindset that made her question the Analytical Engine (her own notes even prove this) examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool.
NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture has new Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), new RT Cores, new Tensor Cores, a totally new Optical Flow Accelerator, and a new Video Engine... and we're just getting started.
NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture has (up to) 12 GPCs, 72 x TPCs, 144 x SMs, and up to a huge 18432 CUDA cores, 144 x RT Cores (3rd Gen), and 576 Tensor Cores (4th Gen). NVIDIA has up to a 2.5GHz GPU clock on the new Ada GPU inside of the RTX 4090 (it pushes up to and over 3.0GHz, btw) with 24GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit memory bus, as well as 2 x AV1 decoders, and a huge 76 billion transistors made on TSMC's new 4N process node.
Ada is 2x more power efficient than the Turing and Ampere GPUs with some commanding performance for 450W (which is the TDP of the current king: RTX 3090 Ti).
There is a lot of new stuff going on under the hood of Ada and the next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs.
But man, when you get to DLSS Super Resolution and DLSS 3... things get real, real exciting for Ada.
DLSS 3 is some true GPU black magik, with NVIDIA putting in the hard yards into its AI-based rendering technology offering some next-gen gaming performance on top of the already next-gen GPU performance you're already getting with Ada Lovelace and the GeForce RTX 4090.
DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) uses AI super resolution and Tensor Cores on GeForce RTX series GPUs to super-boost frame rates, as well as improve the image quality of your games beyond the native resolution (especially as you use games with higher versions of DLSS, like DLSS 2.x and DLSS 3).
The original DLSS debuted back in early 2019 and while it wasn't an overnight success, it is now an amazing piece of technology that sides inside GeForce RTX series GPUs. DLSS 1.0 started off with just a few games: Battlefield V and Metro Exodus. After that, Remedy Games shipped out Control which featured ray tracing and an improprived version of DLSS but it didn't use Tensor Cores.
DLSS 2.0 was a huge step forward, with improvements made to image quality and performance, with a generalized neural network that adapts to all games and scenes without specific training required. DLSS 2 is pumping along inside of over 200 games and app right now, with support from major game engine technologies like Epic Games' Unreal Engine and Unity.
Control got an update that provided DLSS 2.0 support, using Tensor Cores this time, but NVIDIA said AI wasn't needed to be trained on each game specifically. But from there... DLSS 2.0 evolved into DLSS 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and now 2.4 which recently shipped in Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered.
NVIDIA's AI supercomputer continuously has DLSS 2 training on it, with 4 major updates released that help image quality and performance... but then there's DLSS 3.
DLSS 3 is a major leap forward, with NVIDIA explaining it as a "revolutionary breakthrough in AI-powered graphics that massively boosts performance while maintaining great image quality and responsiveness" and they are NOT wrong. AMD has its work cut out for it with FSR in the future, and Intel... well, we'll leave those guys out of the race with Arc for now because they can only dream of having a GPU as powerful as AD102 and future-gen DLSS 3 tech.
NVIDIA is building on top of the DLSS Super Resolution blocks with DLSS 3, which adds Optical Multi Frame Generation that generates entirely new frames, as well as integrating NVIDIA Reflex low latency technology for the absolute peak in responsiveness.
DLSS 3 is super-powered by NVIDIA's new 4th Gen Tensor Cores and Optical Flow Accelerator inside of the next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, which is the star of the show here with the new GeForce RTX 40 series. You can't run DLSS 3 on older-gen GeForce RTX series GPUs, but you can run older DLSS versions in games on your new RTX 40 series GPU.
NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture has something new with the new DLSS Frame Generation convolutional autoencoder taking in 4 inputs -- current, and prior game frames, an optical flow field generated by Ada's Optical Flow Accelerator, and game engine data including motion vectors and depth.
Ada's Optical Flow Accelerator analyzes two sequential in-game frames and calculates an optical flow field. The optical flow field captures the direction and speed at which pixels are moving from frame 1 to frame 2. The Optical Flow Accelerator is able to capture pixel-level information such as particles, reflections, shadows, and lighting, which are not included in game engine motion vector calculations. In the motorcycle example below, the motion flow of the motorcyclist accurately represents that the shadow stays in roughly the same place on the screen with respect to their bike.
Whereas the Optical Flow Accelerator accurately tracks pixel level effects such as reflections, DLSS 3 also uses game engine motion vectors to precisely track the movement of geometry in the scene. In the example below, game motion vectors accurately track the movement of the road moving past the motorcyclist, but not their shadow. Generating frames using engine motion vectors alone would result in visual anomalies like stuttering on the shadow.
For each pixel, the DLSS Frame Generation AI network decides how to use information from the game motion vectors, the optical flow field, and the sequential game frames to create intermediate frames. By using both engine motion vectors and optical flow to track motion, the DLSS Frame Generation network is able to accurately reconstruct both geometry and effects, as seen in the picture below:
With DLSS 3 enabled, AI is reconstructing three-fourths of the first frame with DLSS Super Resolution, and reconstructing the entire second frame using DLSS Frame Generation. In total, DLSS 3 reconstructs seven-eighths of the total displayed pixels, increasing performance significantly!
DLSS 3 also incorporates NVIDIA Reflex, which synchronizes the GPU and CPU, ensuring optimum responsiveness and low system latency. Lower system latency makes game controls more responsive and ensures on-screen actions occur almost instantaneously once you click your mouse or other control input. When compared to native, DLSS 3 can reduce latency by up to 2X.
DLSS 3 = is perfect for ray tracing games, adding performance when image quality (turning RAY TRACING on) reduces FPS... enabling DLSS 3 brings you not just back to parity (the same perf with RT *off*) but it injects a serious amount of FPS into the game negating any visual bells and whistles you've enabled (like, ray tracing).
So, you can enable ray tracing in something like Cyberpunk 2077... reduce your FPS by a huge chunk, but enable DLSS 3 on your new GeForce RTX 40 series graphics card and you'll get MORE PERFORMANCE than you would at native rendering resolution + NO ray tracing enabled. It's like magic, but for game rendering.
Now, what about promised performance with DLSS 3? Yeah, that's where the money shot is in terms of benchmark charts, check this bad boy out:
Speaking of ray tracing... let's dive into Ada Lovelace's advances in ray tracing, with NVIDIA cementing its commanding role in the world of ray tracing in games.
It wouldn't be a new NVIDIA GeForce RTX series GPU without next-gen ray tracing upgrades, where Ada Lovelace really delivers on huge upgrades to ray tracing.
NVIDIA kicked off the Ray Tracing game back in 2018 and early 2019 with Battlefield V featuring 39 ray tracing operations per pixel, up to an insane 635 ray tracing operations per pixel for Cyberpunk 2077.
NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs all support DLSS 3, so if you're using a game that supports ray tracing and it supports DLSS 3... then you're going to get a better-looking game with far more performance. It's pretty much black magik, something I've often referred to DLSS as.
It's simply magical, and I'm sure NVIDIA will team with Disney in the future for some crazy good-looking (on GeForce GPUs of course) animated movie in the way Frozen changed the world with "Let It Go", NVIDIA changes it with DLSS.
If you want the best smoothness (highest FPS with the best 1% low FPS) mixed with the best responsiveness (overall system latency) and the best image quality (detail and motion quality) then you're going to get that with Ada + RT + DLSS 3 technologies combined.
CD PROJEKT RED will soon push out an update for Cyberpunk 2077 that will enable a new "Overdrive Mode" for ray tracing (up from the "Psycho" mode the game already has) and will usher in 635 ray tracing operations pier pixel, and the second that update drops I'll be pumping the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card through it.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is an absolute behemoth, with the AD102-300 GPU inside featuring some powerhouse specs that crush the still-powerful GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. NVIDIA is still using the same 24GB of GDDR6X memory, on the same 21Gbps bandwidth, with the same 1TB/sec+ memory bandwidth as its RTX 3090 Ti.
But other than that, it's an overhaul of specifications that include a huge 12x the L2 cache of the RTX 3090 Ti, with the RTX 4090 packing a huge 72MB of L2 cache in total.
NVIDIA has finally, finally shifted away from the Samsung 8nm process node for its Ampere GPUs over to TSMC using its custom 4N process node (5nm in reality, but it sounds cooler with TSMC 4N). AD102-300 packs a huge 67.3 billion transistors, and 16834 CUDA cores (over 18,000 in the full-fat Ada GPU).
NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition shows how much work the company puts into the evolution of its Founders Edition graphics cards, with the new RTX 4090 FE featuring enhanced power management (this is a big one) and enhanced cooling (just as important).
The enhanced power management on the new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card is a big upgrade from the current-gen GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition and the suped-up RTX 3090 Ti which had power that smashed 450W and some. But the older RTX 3090 FE has inferior power transient management to the new RTX 4090 FE, which offers much more stable power to the card.
This stops those slumps and jumps in power to the card, which results in Ada Lovelace GPUs pushing far higher GPU clocks (2200MHz or so for the RTX 3090 Ti versus 2800MHz through to 3000MHz+ on the RTX 4090) for the same (if not lower) power.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card has a flow-through thermal design (the same as the RTX 30 FE series GPUs) but with larger fans that allow for 20% more airflow. NVIDIA has made improvements to the unibody design, which has been designed for strength and rigidity.
The new GeForce RTX 4090 FE also has enhanced memory efficiency, with lower-power GDDR6X modules used and improved airflow and temperature sensing. The original RTX 3090 used double-sided GDDR6X modules which meant not just the front of the card, but the back of the RTX 3090 FE used to get ridiculously hot with GDDR6X temperatures easily sitting at 110C all day and night long.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card from the front doesn't look that different to the RTX 3090 FE, but in saying that, I'm still a huge fan of this design. The RTX 4090 FE design is one of my favorites, and I have custom RTX 4090 models from ASUS, MSI, COLORFUL, GAINWARD, and others.
On top of the RTX 4090 FE you've got that spiffy PCIe 5.0 16-pin power connector, which is ready to push 600W with its 4 x 8-pin PCIe power adapter that's included
This is the battle to end all battles in the RTX x090 Founders Edition graphics cards, so I've got both of NVIDIA's in-house GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition and the new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition in some comparison side-by-side (and sometimes on top of each other). I don't have an RTX 3090 Ti FE card, so the RTX 3090 FE + RTX 4090 FE cards will have to do.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 FE is actually a tad shorter than the GeForce RTX 3090 FE, with the "RTX 4090" and its new font taking up less space on the card than the "RTX 3090". You can see the RTX 4090 FE has a slightly bigger fan, longer than the RTX 3090 FE fan, right up to the edge of the card.
The new RTX 4090 FE might be a little shorter, but it's definitely thicker than the RTX 3090 FE: don't get me wrong, both cards are triple-slot GPU beasts but the RTX 4090 FE is thicker, but it's not as crazy as the AIBs have gone with custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards.
You can see just how thick when you're up close, with the RTX 3090 FE on the left and the new RTX 4090 FE on the right.
Here you can see the RTX 4090 FE (on top) is shorter and thicker while the RTX 3090 FE (on the bottom) is slightly longer, and slightly thinner.
Once again from the side, the RTX 4090 FE is on top here, and the RTX 3090 FE is on bottom.
I've recently upgraded my major GPU test bed for 2022, but I will be upgrading again soon enough once Intel launches its new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs and Z790 motherboards, and AMD with its upcoming Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" CPUs and X670E motherboards.
The new upgrades include the shift to the Intel Core i9-12900K processor, ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard, 64GB of Sabrent Rocket DDR5-4800 memory, and 8TB of Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD goodness. Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K is a beast, with the Alder Lake CPU packing 8 Performance cores (P-cores) and 8 Efficient cores (E-cores) at up to 5.2GHz.
I've got that installed into the bigger-than-life ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard, which is absolutely loaded to the brim with technologies and features that it houses everything you need. We're talking about one of the best-looking designs on a motherboard yet, PCIe 5.0 support, enthusiast-grade 10GbE networking, and oh-so-much more.
Sabrent helped out in a huge way by sending over 64GB of DDR5-4800 memory in the form of 4 x 16GB DDR5-4800 modules of its new Sabrent Rocket DDR5 memory. The company also helped out in an even bigger way, supplying us with a gigantic and super-fast 8TB model of its Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD.
We're talking about 7.5GB/sec+ (7500MB/sec) from a single M.2 SSD, along with a gigantic 8TB of capacity. The 2TB drives aren't big enough for all of our game installs for GPU testing... the 4TB is much better, but the 8TB gives us room to move into 2023 without worrying about installing multiple games that are 200GB+ in size.
Some glory shots, of course.
ASUS has been a tight partner of TweakTown for many years, with the fine folks at ASUS Australia sending over their ROG Strix XG438Q and ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitors for our GPU test benches. They're both capable of 4K 120Hz+ through their DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity.
I will be upgrading these in the near future, over to some DisplayPort 2.0-capable panels and some new HDMI 2.1-enabled 4K 165Hz panels in OLED form of course...given that next-gen GPUs are right around the corner, there has been no better time to upgrade your display or TV.
I've been working on this system for a while now, but now we're stretching its legs with the newly-released PC port of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. Not just in 1080p or 1440p, not even in just 4K... but at 8K with a native resolution of 7680 x 4320. I've run through some of the very fastest GPU silicon on the planet.
Coming soon... but these results, man... they'll be worth it.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition was hitting an average of 2700MHz GPU clocks, while the GPU temps are pretty cool at under 70C during gaming and benchmark loads, with the GPU hotspot sitting at around 76C. The fans on the RTX 4090 FE were running at 48% (1500RPM or so) and 43% (1385RPM or so).
The entire board power was sitting at around 400W of power consumption, but the Ada Lovelace GPU is much more efficient (along with the RTX 40 FE board design and TSMC 4N process node) meaning you've got the power to turn down the power limit slider and maintain kick-ass next-gen GPU performance.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 is an absolute powerhouse of a graphics card, and is purely for the ultra-enthusiast gamers and users out there... if you're not a 4K 120Hz+ monitor or TV owner (with HDMI 2.1) then this isn't for you. If you are one of those gamers or enthusiasts -- I am -- then man, you're in for a wild ride.
Slotting in the huge GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card inside of any gaming machine, even if you're taking out an already-fast GeForce RTX 3090... you're going to FEEL the performance improvement. Normally it's 10-20% but this is a monumental upgrade for 4K 120FPS+ gamers, with Ada Lovelace delivering FPS improvements at ALL resolutions, but 4K 120FPS+ is an important market for NVIDIA.
If you don't touch the power limit slider and leave it at the default 450W setting, you're going to be pleasantly surprised with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090. All that testing the company did with its not-so-old RTX 3090 Ti has paid off because the boards used here for the RTX 4090 are a serious step above.
You could easily throw a new GeForce RTX 4090 into a system that is using the GeForce RTX 3090 or RTX 3090 Ti, and not have to upgrade your PSU. You're not going to be using 600W+ on this card unless you've got LN2 cooling, spend days modding the card, and push it past 3.0GHz+ all day long. For 99% of people who don't do that, you're going to be pleasantly surprised with how good the RTX 4090 is on power and thermals (compared to the RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3090).
The world of 3.0GHz+ GPU clocks on NVIDIA is here... which I didn't think we'd see this generation, especially after Ampere hits a wall at around 2.2GHz or so. I've got to say though, seeing 3015MHz GPU boost clocks on the GeForce RTX 4090 really is something else.
We heard rumors of 600W+ and even 850W+ insanity but for NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 4090... it's just not needed. 450W is perfectly fine for the GPU to hit a ceiling at, with none of my custom cards using more than that (on average, if you check the max slider, it will breach 450W easily). But you can power limit the GPU and it can use sub 350W and still kill everything else on the market.
I can't remember the last time I installed a new graphics card and had so many 'OMG' moments out loud, the performance of the new GeForce RTX 4090 is simply insane. If you've got it paid with a new Intel Core i9-13900K (the previous-gen Core i9-12900K, and similar from Intel) or AMD's just-released Ryzen 9 7900X or 7950X "Zen 4" CPU, then you've got a match made in heaven.
Grab yourself a huge 4K 120Hz+ OLED TV or a decently sized (43-inch or bigger) 4K 120Hz+ gaming monitor, and you're going to be in gaming heaven... NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 is the graphics card you've been waiting for: capable of pumping 4K 120FPS in today's and even tomorrow's games if they have DLSS 3 support.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition is a beautiful card in its own right, one of the best-looking RTX 4090s that you can buy, and would look magnificent in any gaming PC (albeit, if it can fit). It's a mammoth-looking card, but all of those cooling chops underneath keep the AD102 GPU and 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory as cool as possible.
The cooling technology that NVIDIA has beefed up on the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition might be invisible to the naked eye -- at least without ripping the cooler off -- but there is a LOT of work that the company has put into it. Gone are the days of super-hot FE cards, and here are the days of cool-operating RTX 40 series FE graphics cards.
NVIDIA moving away from using a custom 8nm process at Samsung and over to a new custom TSMC 4N process node (5nm) is helping here too.
From here, we have AIB partners with custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards, where right now I have:
The reviews will be in that order (as I received the samples) in the coming days, with MSI, ASUS, and COLORFUL up first. In between, and after, I'll take a closer look at 8K gaming performance, ray tracing performance, and as many DLSS 3-powered games that I can test.
Wrapping up, if you want the biggest and most bad-ass graphics card you can buy: NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 is a treasure. It's not for everyone, but not every $1599+ product is. Not everyone walks into a Tesla or Ferrari dealership and complains at the price of the cars... they know what customers they are going to get from the very start.
NVIDIA knows this is going to appeal to a particular part of the market, and they have nailed it with the GeForce RTX 4090. Yet another fantastic flagship next-gen GPU, with multiple improvements that make the RTX 4090 Founders Edition something truly special.
NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture makes its debut in the new wicked-fast GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card, your new GPU for 4K 120FPS+ gaming and beyond. DLSS 3 is pure magic at this point, someone should check NVIDIA to see if they have a coven or something.
Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering.
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