Power and Temperature
To test the power and temperature we perform a manual run-through in Cyberpunk 2077 at “Ultra” settings for real-world in-game data. We use GPU-Z sensor data to record the results. We report on the GPU-Z sensor data for “Board Power” and “GPU Chip Power” when available for our Wattage data. For temperature data, we report the GPU (Edge Temp of the GPU or Package Temp) as well as Hot Spot (Junction Temperature) when available for our temperature data.
Naturally, overclocking means the board power and GPU chip power are going to increase, and they did increase, by a large degree on the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Overclocked. The board power shot up from 354W to 406W, an increase of 15% more board power, which includes the GDDR6X memory. Remember, this is a 350W TDP video card, and we have just made it a 400W+ TDP video card by overclocking it. The GPU chip power increases from 205W up to 227W, an increase of 11% power. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT still has the highest GPU chip power draw by far.
For our overclocking results, and the temperature results above, we have the fans set at 100% fan speed on the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition video card. Even with the fans at 100% the overclocked GPU temp and hot spot temp are close to default with the fans set at default. This indicates a very hot running card, where even with the fans at 100% it is not doing the best job at keeping the board and GPU cool with the highest overclock.
This indicates a weakness in the Founders Edition design, as far as overclocking goes, it takes a very high fan speed to keep it near what it sits at not overclocked. Therefore, you will most likely be running hotter while overclocked, if you use an automatic fan speed. We suggest dialing in a faster than automatic fan speed on the Founders Edition if you are overclocking and pushing the card as high as possible, else, you may find that it gets very hot in your case and potentially thermal throttles.
Also, a point worth noting is that with the fans at 100% they are incredibly loud, and annoying. You would be able to hear them with this video card installed in a case, even with headphones on. The noise level they output at full RPM is very loud, this is understandable considering their size of 110mm and large fan blades, but they can get to 2620RPM which is both fast and loud. For comparison, on automatic at default settings, they are around 1715RPM or 65% while gaming.