Conclusion
In today’s overclocking review we took the brand new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition video card and overclocked it as far as possible. We pushed the GPU clock speed and memory up to very high levels and tested performance, and looked at how much performance is added from overclocking the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.
We were happy to see some meat on the bones for this GPU, there was actually some headroom available to overclock the GPU frequency and memory frequency further. NVIDIA is not shipping the RTX 3090 Ti fully tapped out at maximum levels, pushing it as hard as they could in fact. Overclocking proved that there is headroom left on the memory and GPU to allow a performance uplift in games taking the RTX 3090 Ti even further in performance than it already is.
You can check out our full review of the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition video card and our experiences with it.
Performance
Testing performance we started with Dying Light 2 at 4K with the highest in-game settings, minus Ray Tracing. The overclocked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition allowed a playable gameplay experience at 65FPS at 4K. We found that the overclock improved performance by 7% and made the RTX 3090 Ti FE 18% faster than the GeForce RTX 3090 FE with the overclock, so that is quite a boost in performance. Utilizing DLSS at 4K brought performance up to 95FPS on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE.
In Rainbow Six Extraction we were able to play the game very smoothly on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE at 139FPS at 4K. This is with the highest in-game settings. The overclock improved performance by 6% and compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 19% faster. Further turning on DLSS brought the performance to nearly 200FPS at 4K on the overclocked RTX 3090 Ti FE. Using the more demanding TAA-2X setting the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE was also playable at near 80FPS. This was 20% faster than the RTX 3090 FE.
In Forza Horizon 5 we were able to play at 4K above 80FPS with the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE. Overclocking improved performance by 4% and compared to the RTX 3090 FE performance was 12% faster. Far Cry 6 was also very playable at 4K on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti bringing in over 90FPS with the highest settings. Compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 13% faster, and FSR also brought performance up even higher to 120FPS.
Cyberpunk 2077 was challenging as ever and was not playable at 4K and “Ultra” settings without DLSS. With DLSS performance was near 60FPS average on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE, which was 20% faster than the RTX 3090 FE. Watch Dogs Legion was also playable at 73FPS on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE. Compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 16% faster.
Ray Tracing performance also increased in every game at 1440p. Dying Light 2 was playable at 1440p with maximum game settings and Ray Tracing without DLSS on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE. Overclocking improved performance by 6% and compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 18% faster. With Cyberpunk 2077 the game was borderline playable on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE at 53FPS average. With DLSS on though the game was very playable at 80FPS.
Watch Dogs Legion was very playable at 1440p and Ray Tracing on the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at 71FPS. The overclock improved performance by 6% and compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 18% faster. Finally, in Metro Exodus Enhanced the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE was also very playable at over 70FPS with Ray Tracing. The overclock improved performance by 6% and compared to the RTX 3090 FE it was 19% faster.
Overclocking
Overclocking the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition video card was rather easy, mostly because we were limited by options. To our disappointment, we could not raise the Power Target, it was at 100% and there was no room to adjust higher. That would have made the video card exceed the 450W TDP, and with the limited power we have of 3x 8-pin connectors which equal 450W, it does make some sense, though the PCI-Express connector can also provide 75W of power. Still, to keep the video card from being unstable, it makes sense to limit the power capability to that of the three 8-pin power connectors.
Even with the Power Target not adjustable, we still managed to push the GPU Clock speed higher to +140. In our testing of the GPU Clock frequency while gaming this increased it from 1995MHz up to 2160MHz on average. That’s a pretty solid bump and headroom left in the GPU. That is an 8% overclock on the GPU Frequency, which remember is already running well above the 1860MHz GPU Boost spec. We were also able to push the memory higher than we anticipated. Its default frequency is 21GHz and we pushed it to 23GHz. That increases the bandwidth from 1TB/s to 1.1TB/s. That’s just pretty amazing memory bandwidth here, and consider that’s with 24GB of it.
With the fans at 100%, the GPU temperatures were well in control. Though at 100% fan speed the fans are very loud. You probably would not want to keep them there at all times. Thankfully this overclock will work at lower fan speeds. The temperatures will not hold back the overclock on this Founders Edition design, it appears to be well designed to handle the thermal properties of the GPU. Remember, the RTX 3090 Ti GPU actually runs at a lower Voltage than the RTX 3090 GPU, plus there have been some vapor chamber tweaks. The Founders Edition cooling seems to be very adequate for controlling the thermals on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti when overclocked.
Final Points
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition is the fastest gaming graphics card right now, and the fastest in the RTX 30 Series. It allows the best gameplay experience at 4K, the highest game settings are playable, and it allows the best Ray Tracing experience. Combined with DLSS and other NVIDIA features, your gameplay experience will be as good as you can get right now.
In our overclocking review today we found that overclocking the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition can improve performance, even more, maximizing the experience to its potential out of this GPU. Overclocking allowed between a 6-8% performance improvement in most games. This won’t change what is playable, but it will enhance the experience at a given resolution, game setting, or with Ray Tracing. It can be the small thing needed to smooth out performance in some rough areas.
When we compare the overclocked performance to the GeForce RTX 3090 FE though, we do find a much higher measured gameplay performance improvement. We experienced some 18-20% higher performance compared to the GeForce RTX 3090 FE with the overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FE. This is enough to allow you to enable a higher game setting, or Ray Tracing on the overclocked RTX 3090 Ti FE versus the RTX 3090 FE. That is therefore pretty significant and can provide a gameplay experience advantage. An overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is pretty much the pinnacle of gaming right now.