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.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition is a 450W TDP video card, versus the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition which is 350W. These power results show this fact. The board power on our NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition hit a maximum of 453W, and GPU Chip power at 359W. The GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition sits at a board power 100W less at 354W and GPU Chip Power of 205W. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti runs at a 28% higher board power than the GeForce RTX 3090, and a 75% higher GPU Chip power than the GeForce RTX 3090. The GPU Chip Power is also 41% higher than the Radeon RX 6900 XT, which always used to be the highest GPU Chip Power, until now.
On the plus side of things, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition actually isn’t that bad on GPU and GPU Hot Spot temperatures. With as much power as it draws, you would think it would be the hottest card on this list, but it isn’t. The Radeon RX 6900 XT still takes the lead in GPU and GPU Hot Spot Temperatures.
The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition design clocks in with a GPU temperature of 73.6c and Hot Spot temp of 81.9c. This is much cooler than the GeForce RTX 3090 FE and close in temps to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, which is a smaller video card overall.
One factor that might account for this temperature reduction is that the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition GPU is actually running at a lower voltage compared to the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition. The RTX 3090 Ti FE is running at 1.0750V while the RTX 3090 FE is running at 1.0810V. The other might come down to the tweaks done to the Vapor Chamber on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition design versus the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition design.
We did look at the fan speeds to compare between both, and the fan speeds are actually running faster on the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition fans run slightly slower by default. On the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, the fan speeds ran at 65% and 1715RPM. However, on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition the fan speeds ran at 58% and 1515RPM. Therefore, it’s not a fan speed difference accounting for the lower temps. It’s a pretty amazing feat for a card pulling so much power.
Also, we did look at the memory temperatures. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE had a memory temp of 82c and the GeForce RTX 3090 FE had a memory temp of 90c. Therefore, the newer GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE had cooler running memory as well, even though it’s running much faster clock speeds.
Discussion (8 replies)
Join Discussion →It's actually more of an improvement than I expected, but not enough to make me buy one over an existing RTX 3090. Furthermore, I think that while it's a great card, I'm not sure it makes sense to buy at this late stage of Ampere's life cycle. Aren't we supposed to see its successor late this year?
Thanks @Brent_Justice for the great review.
I couldn't rightly recommend one of these to anyone unless they had the money laying around and really wanted it now, especially since the next-gen should be out sometime in the next 6 months. Anyone with a 3080 Ti or better can potentially OC their cards for almost the same performance.
However, I was able to use the EVGA step-up program to upgrade from a 3090 to an FTW3 Ultra 3090 Ti. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and went ahead and did it. I've been really happy with it. For the 1st time since I've gotten into 4K gaming (~ 4-6 years ago), I can just leave everything at stock settings. This card replaced a Suprim X 3090 that's now in my other rig and performs the same at stock vs. when I was overclocking that card. It's been so long since I've been able to game without all my case fans cranked that I'd forgotten how nice it can be. The only caveat, as Brent said repeatedly, is that DLSS is still needed if cranking ray tracing settings to the max in demanding games and wanting to go over 60 FPS. I'm o.k. with that since the games I play have DLSS 2.0 and the quality setting looks great to me. I've tinkered with overclocking it but the gains are minimal as it's fairly optimized right out of the box and I see it boost to 1925 MHz-2010 MHz while not exceeding 70c. For me, the fans rarely go more than 82% and are even able to drop into the 50s-60s now and then-same for temps. I spent a lot of time gaming on it last week and can confirm. ;)
For me, it's been like upgrading from a tricked-out V6 to a well-built midsize V8, without the extra stuff to do the same amount of work.
Same here. Card runs much cooler than my non overclocked EVGA 3080 Ti I stepped up from as well.
Agreed. I was only expecting like 2-5% at most.
This is certainly the greatest card of this generation. Only problem is, this generation is almost over. If you buy one of these now, you are going to have 40xx cards on the shelves in the not too distant future that perform better for less money.
That's why I generally buy at the beginning of a new product cycle when new architectures are released.
Same.
It's also the hardest time to buy :p
That remains to be seen about the cost. I have no regrets stepping up to my current card, but I have a feeling there is going to be the same issue with inventory and price of the new cards as their was with the 3000 series cards when they were launched.
Agreed @Niner51 . If it wasn't for the step-up I wouldn't have tried to even get the 3090 Ti I got but now but I'm already thinking about how my next card is likely to be an EVGA 4090 of some sort with plans to upgrade it down the road via the same path again. For now, though, I'm happy I can wait it out and let the market settle. This will be the 1st new GPU launch in years that I won't be scrambling to get something at around launch.
It'll be nice to sit back and just watch how things develop, especially since NV has changed its rollout strategies considerably since Maxwell. I remember how I was shocked how the 2080 Ti came out relatively early during Pascal and they never really released a more powerful consumer card for that gen and even, in the end, there was a great deal of speculation about what coming next after the 2080 Super came out. Ampere, in terms of release progression, was a bit more normal but who knows what NV is really planning for the next.
From pandemic to supply chain to the battle of fab dominance, and competition, there's a lot in play that can affect how the next-gen will be rolled out. Plus we could also see some kind of unexpected random surprise with the next round of consoles too since news of them should start to ramp up about the 2nd year of the 40 series cards. AMD has been riding pretty high with MS and Sony while NV has partnered with Nintendo but things do change in those markets as well.