The RTX 3090 Ti has finally landed! It’s been some time since it was first teased by Nvidia at CES back in January. The Ampere flagship is set to launch at US$1,999, while premium models are expected to sell for much more.
The 3090 Ti comes with the fully enabled GA102 GPU with all of the available 10,752 CUDA Cores unlocked. This compares to the 8,704 of the base RTX 3080, 8,960 of the 12GB 3080 and 10,496 of the 3090. The Founders Edition comes with a 1,860 MHz boost clock, a big jump over the 1,695MHz of the 3090. Pack in 24GB of 21Gbps GDDR6X memory and we’re looking at a monster of a card.
The RTX 3090 isn’t known for its power thriftiness. At 350W it’s already a power hungry and hot running GPU. The 3090 Ti elevates that to a new level. The extra cores and higher clocks necessitate a significant jump. The Founders Edition sports a 450W TDP and we can expect more from custom models, especially the overclocked ones. Many of them come with the brand new 12VHPWR power connector. Some, like the EVGA Kingpin RTX 3090 Ti, come with two. Because 1200W of power on tap is totally normal right?
All of that heat means that RTX 3090 coolers need to be either very large, or come with liquid cooling. Let’s have a look at some cards from the big names.
Asus
Asus has two RTX 3090 Ti models to begin with, they are the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. There’s no regular Strix for now, though it’s likely to come in the future.
The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti is a hybrid design that combines a blower style cooler and a 240mm AIO. The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti looks much like the other premium TUF cards on the market. The TUF cooler is already very large and capable and Asus is obviously comfortable that it can handle the higher TDP 3090 Ti.
Both cards come with the new PCIe 5.0 power connector.
EVGA
EVGA is releasing a range of 3090 Ti models. These include three air cooled FTW variations plus a hybrid cooling version, combining a 360m AIO and a blower cooler. Then there’s a Hydro Copper model with a pre fitted water block.
The air cooled cards come with EVGA’s iCX3 cooler, which is effectively a four slot cooler. Of course there’s plenty of RGB too.
Perhaps the craziest 3090 Ti of all is the Kingpin Hybrid Gaming. Though its not yet ready for release, it comes with a 360mm AIO, an OLED display and no less than 1200W of possible power delivery thanks to not one, but two PCIe 5.0 power connectors.
Gigabyte
Gigabyte is releasing an Xtreme WaterForce 3090 Ti. This card comes with a 360mm AIO. That’s the only Aorus card for now. We may see an Aorus Xtreme later.
There’s a redesigned cooler for Gigabyte’s Gaming 3090 Ti. It’s much larger than the cooler Gigabyte equips on its lesser Gaming series cards. It looks great too with its large black shroud and what appears to be a lack of RGB lighting
MSI
MSI is releasing four 3090 Ti models, well, its more like two actually, made up of the Suprim and Gaming, each with an OC version. MSI’s cooler appear to be unchanged from those you’d find on its RTX 3080 cards. They are big and powerful coolers.
We haven’t seen an MSI Lightning RTX 30 series card. Might we ever see one? A big AIO cooled 3090 Ti Lightning would attract a lot of interest. Well, those with big account balances anyway.
Zotac
Zotac is releasing two Amp Extreme Holo 3090 Ti’s. It appears as though the coolers are carried over from the 3080 Ti Holo. It’s definitely one for lovers of RGB lighting.
The IceStorm cooler is huge, taking up four slots and its long too. It comes with a PCIe 5.0 power connector like most of the other cards being released. It includes a 3x 8-pin adapter, which almost every user will need until there’s wide availability of native ATX 3.0 power supplies.