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.
Discussion (10 replies)
Join Discussion →Thanks, @Brent_Justice for another great review.
I tried overclocking my EVGA FTW3 Ultra 3090 Ti but with much more modest settings that did not net as impressive results as your tests. However, I plan to use, as I've done many times over the years, your review as a guideline just to see what it can do. I had tinkered with increasing the mem speed but with detrimental performance. I actually saw lower max frames in Metro and CB 2077. Not by a whole lot, perhaps 2-5 FPS but the averages were close to the same. I'll tinker a bit more with the mem but will focus more on the boost.
Precision X1 will let me raise the power limit to 107% for that card. I previously did that but only added a meager 25-40 MHz to the boost clock which saw it top around 2010-2040 MHz and I had set the fans to 100% which kept it in the mid-high 60s. I am now curious to see what could happen with ~140 added there. I'm only going to do it just to see what the ceiling really is for the card as at stock it's already doing most of what I need and with the fans on the stock settings, the card fairly quiet, about the same volume as the rest of the fans in the case, and never lets the card above 72c.
Really there is no longer point to overclocking. You get meager results vs power/heat increase. The days of even 20% OC are long gone. You are lucky if you get anywhere near 10%OC
You are better off doing UNDERCLOCKING. You loose very little performance but save quite a bit of power and heat. Might want to check that out.
Too true. These 3090 Ti s are a prime example of that. My previous OC attempts gained more heat, noise, and TDP than performance but it's still nice to see where the ceiling is.
Wait, I read that as 'undervolting' @Stoly, sorry!
But undervolting and overclocking at the same time would be the goal, if there's any allowance left for tuning efficiency.
Well, Thanks @Brent_Justice!
Those settings worked. We all know there's always an element of luck in the bin and I've had more than my share of cards where I was not able to reproduce what I've seen in other reviews using the same settings but these worked. I mostly got the same results. I saw the boost peak at 2140 MHz but it mostly held between 2115 and 2130 MHz with 11,502 on the memory. I get the feeling I might be able to squeeze a little more but I'm not going to worry about it right now. I attached some screenshots. I only tested in Metro Exodus.
The bench results are stock and then the overclock settings. The game screenshots look washed out because I had HDR on and even though it looks fantastic on the C2, afterburner cannot properly capture it. I like Precision X1 for its better tuning options for the card but prefer AB for its OSD.
A few more. Just whipping these out before bed but all are, including the ones above, at 3840x2160/HDR/120 Hz/G-Sync. These are all with the OC settings Brent used for the review. Beyond that it's a lot less scientific as graphical settings are mostly all textures maxed, RT is either maxed or close to it and DLSS is always Quality (except CB 2077-performance). HZ Zero Dawn doesn't have RT but does have DLSS plus it's one of the few games besides Crysis Remastered that can give the CPU a little workout even at 4K. I always turn off any blur, chromatic, lens flare, DOF, type settings. Bottom line is that I was able to replicate the GPU overclock flawlessly with his settings. I saw sustained peaks of 2145 MHz while it only dipped to 2115-2130 MHz during various moments. Again I do apologize for them looking washed out but it's because AB cannot properly capture HDR images.
Off topic... I notice you have a comparison between the RTX 3070 vs 3080 and 3080 vs 3080Ti.
Could you do RTX 3070Ti vs RTX 3080? I'd like to know if its worth the extra dough.
It's on the list! Going in order of the projected popularity based on search volumes.
Gr8 tnx. I'm thinking at this point I should maybe wait for the 4000 series, but I don't think I could get one anyway.