How do you go about reviewing one thing like NVIDIA’s RTX 4090? Just taking a look at its specs alone, it is clearly the quickest shopper GPU we have ever seen. So certain, I can let you know that I can play absolutely anything in 4K with ray tracing and each graphical nicety turned on. Hell, it could actually even scale as much as 8K when you’re a masochist. For a $1,599 video card, it rattling effectively higher. But the true query is, who is that this factor truly for?

Benching the RTX 4090 towards NVIDIA and AMD’s older {hardware} is virtually pointless. Of course it is sooner. Of course it will make you jealous. If you have received the money and also you’re itching to improve, go along with God (or NVIDIA’s leather-clad CEO Jensen Huang, as the corporate’s followers see him). But for anybody else who would not want bleeding edge {hardware}, it exists purely as an object of lust. Sure, you possibly can watch for the upcoming RTX 4080 playing cards, or no matter AMD has within the works, but it surely’s not a 4090. Just just like the final technology of GPUs, NVIDIA is throwing down the gauntlet with a power-hungry card for essentially the most hardcore avid gamers and creators.

Pros

• Incredible efficiency
• Efficient cooling
• Viable 4K ray tracing

Cons

• Huge energy calls for
• Requires 4 cables on older PSUs
• Expensive

If your thoughts is not made up, I assume you are right here simply to see how a lot of a beast the 4090 is. And let me let you know, it is a beautiful factor to behold. Weighing in at 4.8 kilos, and approaching the dimensions of the PlayStation 5, the RTX 4090 is a triple-slot GPU that can dominate no matter case it’s in. Seriously, when you’re considering of getting it, make sure you measure your PC to make sure you can match a virtually foot-long card that is shut to five inches thick.

Be ready to improve your energy provide too: The 4090 has a excessive 450W TDP (the identical thermal design profile because the 3090 Ti) and it requires an 850W PSU. (Some third-party corporations are pushing that demand to 1200W PSUs!) While it may be powered by a single PCIe 5.0 cable, there nonetheless aren’t a lot of these PSUs in the marketplace, so most individuals will doubtless find yourself utilizing 4 8-pin adapters. I cursed Jensen’s title after I realized I wanted to string one other PSU line, after tidying up all of my cables.

Beyond its obscene energy calls for, although, NVIDIA hasn’t modified a lot concerning the 4090 Founder Edition’s design from its earlier mannequin: It’s nonetheless a high-end, all-metal card with a large vapor chamber, heatsink array and two followers on reverse sides. NVIDIA claims they’ll push 20 % extra air than the 3090 Ti – in my testing, that meant the 4090 stayed at a comparatively cool 70C below load.

What’s really particular concerning the RTX 4090, although, is every little thing below the hood. It options the corporate’s new “Ada Lovelace” structure (named after the world’s first pc programmer, although I’m wondering if NVIDIA pays any royalties to show her title into advertising and marketing). It has 16,384 CUDA cores (nearly 6,000 greater than the 3090 Ti), a base clock velocity of two.23GHz (increase to 2.52GHz), and 24GB of GDDR6X RAM. With figures like these, the upcoming RTX 4080 playing cards (which begin with 7,680 CUDA cores) appear puny as compared.