Introduction
When the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series lineup was announced in 2020, and we all saw the GeForce RTX 3090, branded as “The BFGPU” video card, we all thought this was going to be NVIDIA’s top-end SKU for Ampere. Fast forward to 2022, and NVIDIA has gone and launched a higher top-end SKU. Surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in January 2022 and officially launched the video card at the end of March 2022. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is now the top-end RTX 30 Series Ampere SKU of video card available for gaming, and we went and got ourselves a Founders Edition for review today.
Apparently, NVIDIA was holding onto this full-spec SKU of its GA102 GPU Ampere architecture in case it needed to pull it out for competition. Well, they pulled it out. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti launched in April of 2022 at an MSRP of $1,999. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is the Ampere architecture (GA102 silicon) completely fulfilled, it is the “full spec” of GA102, every Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) filled, every CUDA Core in place, and nothing cut-down. This is what Ampere looks like in its full-on complete die specification. That’s right, even the GeForce RTX 3090 was technically a cut-down Ampere GPU, the 3090 Ti, is not. You can consider this GA102 as the mother of the GeForce RTX 30 Series, from which all the video cards below it, sprung from.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Specs
| Specification | GeForce RTX 3090 Ti | GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | GA102-350/Ampere | GA102-300/Ampere | GA102-225/Ampere |
| SMs | 84 | 82 | 80 |
| CUDA Cores | 10752 | 10496 | 10240 |
| ROPs | 112 | 112 | 112 |
| Texture Units | 336 | 328 | 320 |
| RT Cores | 84 (2nd Gen) | 82 (2nd Gen) | 80 (2nd Gen) |
| Tensor Cores | 336 (3rd Gen) | 328 (3rd Gen) | 320 (3rd Gen) |
| Boost Clock | 1860MHz | 1665MHz | 1665MHz |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Frequency | 21GHz | 19.5GHz | 19GHz |
| Memory Bus Width/Bandwidth | 384-bit/1008MB/s | 384-bit/936MB/s | 384-bit/912MB/s |
| TDP | 450W | 350W | 350W |
| MSRP | $1,999 | $1,499 | $1,199 |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is based on the 2nd gen RTX architecture Ampere architecture, manufactured on Samsung 8N same as the rest of the RTX 30 Series. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti uses the GA102-350 silicon, while comparatively, the GeForce RTX 3090 is GA102-300 silicon. The RTX 3090 Ti utilizes all 84 SMs, and 10,752 CUDA Cores, while the RTX 3090 uses 80 SMs and 10,496 CUDA Cores. The RTX 3090 Ti has 84 Ray Tracing Cores and 336 Tensor Cores, while the RTX 3090 has 82 RT Cores and 328 Tensor Cores. The RTX 3090 Ti has 112 ROPs and 336 TMUs while the RTX 3090 has 112 ROPs and 328 TMUs. Therefore, as you can see the RTX 3090 Ti has a bit more CUDA Cores, a couple more RT Cores, a bit more Tensor Cores, and the same number of ROPs.
For clock speeds, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti has a base clock of 1560MHz and a Boost Clock of 1860MHz. The GeForce RTX 3090 has a base clock of 1395MHz and a Boost Clock of 1695MHz. Therefore, the new RTX 3090 Ti has a much-improved GPU clock speed, they really brought it up from 1695MHz to 1860MHz, an increase of 10% higher clock frequency, which can make a difference for sure.
NVIDIA also gave the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti even faster memory, still using 24GB of GDDR6X but now running at 21GHz versus 19.5GHz on the RTX 3090. That brings the memory bandwidth now to over 1TBs, while it was 935GB/s on the RTX 3090.
All of this means a higher TDP, to push these features and clock speed NVIDIA gave the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti a 450W TDP which is way up from the 350W TDP of the RTX 3090. That’s a fairly large increase in TDP, and as such the recommended PSU is 800W and it will require 3x 8-pin power connectors.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition Pictures
The Founders Edition box is sleek and perfectly sized for the video card. It fits snuggly inside protected by foam and the power adaptor is underneath.
In terms of size, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition matches the size of the GeForce RTX 3090 perfectly. It measures 12.3″ inches in length and has a width of 5.4″ inches. It’s a 3-slot video card, 2 inches in depth. It is equally as heavy, weighing 4.84 pounds. The Founders Edition has 3 DisplayPorts 1.4a and 1 HDMI 2.1.
The fan and shroud design is NVIDIA’s iconic unique design, incorporating a push-pull air method with pass-through cooling and custom PCB sizing. The fans are the same 110mm size as the RTX 3090.
While the configuration and build are the same as the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, NVIDIA states that some refinement has been made to the vapor chamber on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti’s design.
Uniquely, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition utilizes a new adaptor pin-out on the video card. Instead of the 12-pin connector on the RTX 3090 and below, this is a newer 16-pin connector based on the new ATX 3.0 standard. Technically, the new 16-pin connector is capable of delivering up to 600W of power, and NVIDIA is the first to adopt it. Now, this video card is a 450W TDP video card, so it doesn’t need 600W of power, but it does still need 3x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and through this 16-pin connector is how NVIDIA achieves it with an included adapter. With the adapter in the box, you connect 3 dedicated 8-pin power cables to this adapter to power this video card. Alternatively, you can also use the new PCIe Gen 5 cable at 450W or greater.
When it is all plugged in, the 3 cable power adapter dongle is a bit of a mess, but that is what it takes with power supplies that don’t have the new PCIe Gen 5 ATX 3.0 cable. It is recommended you use dedicated cables, and do not split off from the same cable, to help even the load on the cables and maintain stability. With the video card installed in the system the GeForce RTX logo on top lights up, as well as the “X” pattern on the front.