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NVIDIA unleashes GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 with Ada Lovelace architecture

By Vijay Anand - on 24 Sep 2022, 9:43am

NVIDIA unleashes GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 with Ada Lovelace architecture

Note: This article was first published on 21 September 2022.

Meet the GeForce RTX 4090, the new kingpin. (Image source: NVIDIA)

Just when you wonder how much more you can get out of the already awesome GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, NVIDIA shattered all our expectations out of a next-gen gaming GPU by throwing up their new Ada Lovelace GPU architecture that will power the new GeForce RTX 4090 and is billed to deliver up to four times faster ray-traced performance, which is nuts! Equipped with third-gen RT cores and fourth-gen Tensor Cores for massive AI uplift that also drives its next-gen DLSS 3 capability, the Ada Lovelace GPU has a lot to offer gamers with unrivalled levels of fidelity, realism and immersion. Think of 4k gaming at the highest settings and ray-tracing on all the time.

Estimated ray-traced performance of GeForce RTX 4090 vs. RTX 3090 Ti. (Click to view larger image)

Concerned about leaked rumours of how the GeForce RTX 40 series might need a generator to power it up? Thankfully, that's now put to rest as NVIDIA has rated its requirements no more than what the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti requires. That means the GeForce RTX 40 series is also a lot more power efficient.

In broader strokes, the new GeForce RTX 4090 is twice as fast as GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in normally rasterised games (and up to four times for ray-traced titles) while using the same amount of power. This is quite a leap in capability, considering the last generation's GeForce RTX 3080 was 'only' twice as fast as the RTX 2080 counterpart, a non-Ti edition. 

Packing 16,384 CUDA Cores, 1,321 Tensor-TFLOPs, 191 RT-TFLOPs, and 83 Shader-TFLOPs of power, supported by 24GB of G6X VRAM, the GeForce RTX 4090 will be available starting from US$1,599 on 12th October. That is far less than the debut price of the RTX 3090 Ti and just a sliver more than the RTX 3090. 

There's also the GeForce RTX 4080 for the rest of us. (Image source: NVIDIA)

Not to forget, NVIDIA also has the GeForce RTX 4080 priced from US$899 (12GB edition) and will come sometime in November this year. Boasting twice the performance of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and coming in lower than its US$1,199 suggested retail price, the GeForce RTX 4080 is a formidable upgrade for gamers and creators alike.

The estimated performance of GeForce RTX 4080 vs. RTX 3080 Ti. (Click to view larger image)

 

How is the GeForce RTX 40 series positioned, and how much will it cost you?

Here's a quick positioning slide of how the new GeForce RTX 40 series fits within NVIDIA's entire stack, which shows all of the GeForce RTX 3080 series and lower will be fielded together for a while to come:-

(Image source: NVIDIA)

Below, this is how all the new models are priced against the older SKUs, and one thing you will notice is that NVIDIA didn't raise the price for the GeForce RTX 40 series; they are, in fact, lower, but yet are far faster than their predecessors (at least where RTX performance is concerned)!

(Image Source: NVIDIA)

Locally, NVIDIA Singapore has advised the expected price points are as follows, and more availability information will follow suit closer to when it's expected to be made available for consumers:

  • GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB) will start from S$2,700
  • GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB) will start from S$2,030
  • GeForce RTX 4080 (12GB) will start from S$1,520

 


A refreshed look for better cooling capacity and power delivery

(Image Source: NVIDIA)

While all three launch models will have custom partner designs, only the leading GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 (16GB) will also be available in Founders Edition variants. These are only available via NVIDIA's authorized partner channels and will feature NVIDIA's signature reference design industrial look, a compact pennant-shaped PCB and a unique dual-cooler flow-through design that first debuted in the RTX 30 series. This time, the RTX 40 series Founders Editions will use a unibody design for added strength and rigidity, and larger fans to increase airflow by up to 20%.

On the PCB, NVIDIA's swapped out the previous 12-pin GPU power connector to a full PCIe 5.0 compliant power connector that supports the new 16-pin schema as seen on a PCIe 5.0 compliant power supply. The power regulation too has been beefed up for improved efficiency that results in fewer peaks and spikes, as charted by NVIDIA:-

(Image Source: NVIDIA)

Lastly, NVIDIA says that newer Micron GDDR6X memory has been deployed on their Founders Edition RTX 40 series, which lowers temperatures by up to 10 degrees Celsius. All these strides on the RTX 40 series are almost as important as the core GPU engineering itself and we can't wait to put a GeForce RTX 4090 to the test. For now, we've some really nice close-up photos of the new Founders Edition card here:-

Isn't she a beaty? Click to see more images from our gallery.

We've also got a custom-designed RTX 4090 card from ASUS with an even more outrageous design, so don't miss checking that out!

 

What makes the GeForce RTX 40 series go so fast?

(Image source: NVIDIA)

With more than twice the transistor count than Ampere GPUs and manufactured on the new 4nm process technology node, the Ada Lovelace immediate boasts massive brute force performance through far higher clock speeds (refer to the table comparison below), as well as many more CUDA, Tensor and RT cores at its disposal, in addition to the generational leap brought about by the Hopper architecture that advances each of the core's capabilities.

Of course, the Ada Lovelace architecture won't be any different from Hopper if it didn't introduce some key new features to boost gaming experiences on the GeForce RTX 40 series to keep it well ahead of the GeForce RTX 30 series. In fact, there are five key new features, which we cover in more detail in this dedicated feature. Meanwhile, here's how the new GPU SKUs compare across the board:-

GPUs compared
GeForce
Graphics Card
RTX 
4090
RTX 
4080
(16GB)
RTX 
4080
(12GB)
RTX
3090 Ti
RTX
3090
RTX
3080 Ti
RTX
3080
GPU Ada Lovelace (AD102) Ada
Lovelace 
(AD103)
Ada
Lovelace 
(AD104)
Ampere
(GA102)
Ampere
(GA102-300)
Ampere
(GA102-225)
Ampere
(GA102-200)
Process 4N
(TSMC)
8nm
(Samsung)
Die Size (mm2) TBD TBD TBD 628 628 628 628
Transistors 76 billion TBD TBD 28
billion
28
billion
28
billion
28
billion
Streaming Multi-processors (SM) 128 76 60 84 82 80 68
CUDA cores 16384 9728 7680 10752 10496 10240 8704
Tensor Cores 512
(Gen 4)
304
(Gen 4)
240
(Gen 4)
336
(Gen 3)
328
(Gen 3)
320
(Gen 3)
272
(Gen 3)
RT Cores 128
(Gen 3)
76
(Gen 3)
60
(Gen 3)
84
(Gen 2)
82
(Gen 2)
80
(Gen 2)
68
(Gen 2)
Render Output Units (ROPs) TBD TBD TBD 112 112 112 96
GPU base / boost clocks (MHz) 2230 / 2520 2210 / 2510 2310 / 2610 1670 /
1860
1395 /
1695
1440 /
1710
1440 /
1710
Memory 24GB GDDR6X 16GB 
GDDR6X
12GB 
GDDR6X
24GB GDDR6X 24GB GDDR6X 10GB GDDR6X 10GB GDDR6X
 Memory clock speed TBD TBD TBD 21GHz
(2.625Gbps)
19.5GHz
(2.437Gbps)
19GHz
(2.375Gbps)
19GHz
(2.375Gbps)
Memory bus width 384-bit 256-bit 192-bit 384-bit 384-bit 384-bit 320-bit
Memory bandwidth TBD TBD TBD 1,008GB/s 936GB/s 912GB/s 760GB/s
Interface PCIe 4.0 PCIe 4.0
TDP 450W 320W 285W 450W 350W 350W 320W
Price US$1,599 US$1,199 US$899 US$1,999 US$1,499 US$1,199 US$699

 

New requirements

You'll need space, an appropriate PSU (and power connectors).

Like the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, the new RTX 4090 is also physically a large card if you haven't yet gathered from the images earlier (and if not, this will certainly capture your attention). However, the new RTX 4090 Founders Edition is strictly a quad-slot graphics card. What that means is you need plenty of space in your case to accommodate the newcomers. 

Fortunately, the RTX 4090 doesn't consume any higher power than the RTX 3090 Ti, but it's still a sizeable figure at 450W for itself. As such, the required minimum rated PSU is 850W and to feed the card will require 4x PCIe 8-pin GPU power cables OR a PCIe Gen 5 cable rated at 450W (or higher) and coupled with a PCIe 5.0 compliant PSU.

Thankfully, you won't need a new motherboard because the GeForce RTX 40 series still utilize PCIe 4.0 and NVIDIA says it still has plenty of bandwidth left on this interface. As such, they found no reason to jump on the PCIe 5.0 bandwagon, yet.
 

Source: NVIDIA and HWZ.


Read Next

1) 5 key new features of the Ada Lovelace GPU microarchitecture powering the GeForce RTX 40 series

2) In pictures: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition is a glorious-looking card

3) A mammoth-sized graphics card: The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 unboxed

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