Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Xtreme Waterforce 24G review: Liquid-cooled goodness

The Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Xtreme Waterforce 24G is as fast as they come. With NVIDIA's BFGPU at its core, or "big ferocious GPU" as it is colloquially referred to, the card requires some serious cooling apparatus to keep its temperatures down.

Featuring 10,752 CUDA cores, blazing fast clock speeds, and a whopping 24GB of GDDR6X memory, this is a card that will cut through any game you throw at it like butter, regardless of the resolution you play it at.

Gigabyte's Waterforce cooling system is what's keeping it all from going up in a ball of flames. The pre-assembled water pipe and pump make the installation process completely hassle-free, but you'll need to check that you have space for the sizeable 360mm aluminium radiator, especially if you're also looking at an all-in-one cooling solution for your CPU.

The good news is that the card itself is relatively slim, requiring just two slots. 

Each radiator fan uses a double ball bearing structure, which offers better heat endurance and efficiency than regular sleeve bearing fans. The fans are installed facing the braided tubing of the AIO, so if you mount the radiator on the roof of your chassis, it will draw air from the inside of your case and exhaust it up top.

Power is supplied via NVIDIA's new 16-pin PCIe 5.0 connector, which can provide up to 600W of juice. In the box, you'll also find a power adaptor for the new connector to ensure compatibility with existing power supply units.

A large copper base plate is responsible for channeling heat away from the GPU, VRAM, and MOSFETs. It is able to cover a wider area than more traditional air-cooled designs, with dedicated cooling for each component.

The PCB is topped by a sleek black metal backplate that provides added structural rigidity and protection. Gigabyte says the PCB itself also has a special coating that confers dust, moisture, and corrosion resistance, which may come in useful in humid environments.

The entire card is clad in matte black, which oozes minimalist appeal. However, it is glaringly lacking RGB lighting of any sort, a surprising omission for a card that costs this much. While I can appreciate the more subdued aesthetic, you'd think that RGB lighting would be a given at this price, so those who want it can toggle it on.

To make matters worse, it's also exceedingly troublesome to swap out the fans. Gigabyte has used proprietary 4-pin connectors, which means you can't simply add third-party RGB fans and hook them up to the pump. You can still use your own fans, but you'll have to connect them to your motherboard instead.

Finally, there are four display outputs at the rear, comprising three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 port.

Test setup

Here are the specifications of our test rig:

• Intel 12th Gen Core i9 12900K CPU
• ROG Maximus Z690 Hero
• Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ 4K Gaming Monitor

We'll be comparing the Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Xtreme Waterforce 24G against the Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Xtreme and GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition.

The following synthetic benchmarks and games were run, with the games chosen from a wide range of genres to give a better indication of performance across different segments:

• 3DMark
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War: Three Kingdoms (Battle)
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Metro: Exodus
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Guardians of the Galaxy

3DMark

3DMark is a synthetic benchmark that tests graphics and computational performance at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K. A series of two graphics test, one physics test, and then a combined test stresses your hardware in turn to assess its performance.

The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is roughly 13 per cent faster than the GeForce RTX 3090 in Fire Strike Ultra. The Gigabyte model is also overclocked compared to the reference model's 1,860MHz boost clock, boasting a 1,935MHz boost clock instead.

1080p Benchmarks (Max Settings)

The performance difference is similarly small in real-world games, where it was a mere 5 per cent quicker in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

It's worth pointing out that the lower resolution means that performance is likely CPU-bound as well, so the difference is less pronounced than it would be at higher resolutions.

1440p Benchmarks (Max Settings)

The difference widens at 1440p as the GPU starts to work harder. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti was 12 per cent faster than its GeForce RTX 3090 counterpart.

4K Benchmarks (Max Settings)

At 4K, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti's advantage widened to 14 per cent in Tomb Raider.

And with frame rates above a hundred in four out of five of the benchmarked games, it's clear that this is the best card on the planet for 4K gaming. There's simply nothing this card can't handle.

4K @ Max Settings (Ray Tracing - Max, DLSS Balanced)

With Ray Tracing and DLSS turned on, all the tested cards took a noticeable performance hit. Nevertheless, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti shrugged it off, notching frames above 60fps in both Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Guardians of the Galaxy.

It was also 17 per cent faster than the GeForce RTX 3090 in Metro: Exodus.

Temperature and power

Unsurprisingly, the liquid-cooled Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Xtreme Waterforce posted stellar temperature numbers. It was a good 10°C chillier than its air-cooled siblings.

That's particularly impressive, considering that the card draws an eye-watering 470W of power.

Conclusion

At S$3,499, the Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Xtreme Waterforce costs as much as a fully-built gaming rig.

However, you're getting class-leading performance for that price, in addition to whisper-quiet cooling thanks to the AIO solution.

There are still a couple of letdowns, however, such as the lack of RGB lighting and the lengths you have to go to should you wish to install your own fans. For the price, the card somehow doesn't feel as over-the-top as it could, although it's difficult to argue against the blistering numbers it serves up.

If you've got the cash to burn and don't mind its plain looks, this GeForce RTX 3090 Ti should make you very happy.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.