Nvidia has finally revealed its next-generation flagship graphics card, the GeForce RTX 4090. The announcement was made during Nvidia’s September keynote event. This flagship model was announced alongside the RTX 4080’s 16GB and 12GB variants.
This is the first time that Nvidia has launched a flagship GPU in two different variants. The RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB cards feature AD103 and AD104 GPUs, respectively. On the other hand, RTX 4090 features 24GB of GDDR6X memory, AD102 GPU with 16384 CUDA cores, and a default TDP of 450W.
Nvidia is planning to release the RTX 4090 for $1,599 on October 12th, 2022. However, both versions of RTX 4080 will come out later in November 2022, starting at $899 for the 12GB model and $1,199 for the 16GB model.
The new GPUs are based on Nvidia’s Lovelace architecture, which is built on a smaller 4nm process. This is quite an improvement over the ampere-based RTX 3000 series built using Samsung’s 8nm chips. The new Ada Lovelace architecture also features DLSS 3, which provides nearly four times more FPS than normal rendering.
The architecture is twice as power efficient, but the GPUs still require a high TDP. According to the company, the RTX 4090 is 2-4 times more powerful than RTX 3090. So let’s take a closer look at the specs of all RTX 4000 series GPUs announced during the event.
RTX 4090 vs RTX 4080 Specs
| GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 4080 (16 GB) | GeForce RTX 4080 (12 GB) | |
| Price | $1,599 | $1,199 | $899 |
| NVIDIA CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 7680 |
| Clock Speed | Boost: 2.52 GHz Base: 2.23 GHz | Boost: 2.51 GHz Base: 2.21 GHz | Boost: 2.61 GHz Base: 2.31 GHz |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Interface Width | 384-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit |
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | Ada Lovelace | Ada Lovelace |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 3rd Generation | 3rd Generation | 3rd Generation |
| Tensor cores | 4th Generation | 4th Generation | 4th Generation |
| NVIDIA DLSS | DLSS 3 | DLSS 3 | DLSS 3 |
| Graphics Card Power | 450W | 320W | 285W |
| Required System Power | 850W | 750W | 700W |
| Required Power Connectors | 3x PCIe 8-pin cables | 3x PCIe 8-pin cables | 2x PCIe 8-pin cables |
| Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | 1x HDMI 2.1 3x DisplayPort 1.4a | 1x HDMI 2.1 3x DisplayPort 1.4a |
| Max Resolution | 7680×4320 | 7680×4320 | 7680×4320 |
RTX 4000 series vs RTX 3000 series
The RTX 4000 series GPUs by Nvidia promise significant improvement from their predecessors. However, the RTX 3000 series will likely see a reduction in price. This change will mostly be due to the overwhelming stock and the crash of Ethereum mining.
This will make the RTX 3000 series a great option for gamers everywhere. Let us know which graphics card you are looking to buy in the comments section below.
