Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090: Review Roundup
One week after the RTX 3080, the RTX 3090 goes on sale today. According to initial reviews, the card doesn't offer much more gaming performance than the RTX 3080 for a hefty price premium.
Nvidia Jensen Huang presented the RTX 3090 as a "BFGPU". In terms of specs, the card definitely is: it has 21 per cent more computing cores than the RTX 3080.
The card in detail
In contrast to the RTX 3080, the RTX 3090 is based on the full version of the GA102 chip. In addition to the 21 per cent more CUDA cores and 21 per cent more texture mapping units, the card offers 17 per cent more render output units or ROPs. Both are similar in terms of clock speeds. However, the 3090 has the slightly faster GDDR6X memory with 19.5 Gbps. In conjunction with the 384-bit memory bus, this results in a memory bandwidth of 935.8 GB/s. An increase of 23 per cent compared to the 3080.
The reviews
Computerbase writes that even hardcore gamers should think twice about the RTX 3090. The card only delivers 11 per cent more FPS in 2160p resolution than the RTX 3080, and the difference in performance is only more noticeable at 5K and higher. This is not worth the extra cost. Although Nvidia is not marketing the card as a Titan RTX successor, it should be regarded as such. For employees working with larger rendering objects, high-resolution videos or machine learning, the card is absolutely top-notch. However, the target group is therefore small.
Techspot takes a similar view. 24 GB VRAM is great, but only if you actually need it. Even for most productive work in Blender and the like, 10 GB VRAM is enough and the difference in performance there is only 18 per cent. After all, 24 GB VRAM is now around 1000 dollars cheaper: The Titan RTX was sold in the States for 2500 dollars and the RTX 3090 is advertised at 1500 dollars. In games, the RTX 3090 is on average ten per cent faster than the RTX 3080.
Igor'sLab speaks of 20 per cent more performance in application performance and Studio than the RTX 3080. In gaming, the 3090 is 10.5 per cent faster on average. All in all, the added value is in the productive area.
And for us?
We do have a few 3090s on sale, but as with the 3080, supply bottlenecks are to be expected. My colleague Yannick Cejka will keep you up to date. I will be receiving an RTX 3090 from Asus to test in the next few days and will also be writing a review of the card. <p
From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.