Yes, we are all excited about it GeForce RTX 4090. Yes, it’s going to be available in just a few weeks Yes, it’s all but guaranteed to be an absolute monster of a GPU, taking us to new 8K gaming heights (a fittingly Ridiculous price tag)
But there’s another, as-yet-unannounced graphics card that I’m more interested in. Well, technically there are two – I’d still like to see a more wallet-friendly one RTX 4070 – But here I’m going to talk about the possible new flagship Nvidia is working on: the RTX 4090 Ti.
See, the RTX 4090 is confirmed to use Nvidia’s ‘AD102’ GPU chip, while the two models RTX 4080 Will use AD103 and AD104 chips. But the AD102 chip powering the RTX 4090 isn’t a full-fat version of the AD102; This means it doesn’t have access to the full suite of CUDA cores that the chip is capable of using.
Now, this is common practice for chipmakers; All in all it is cheaper to make one chip for two different GPUs than to produce two completely different chips. But now that we know the specs of the AD102 chip, Nvidia may have inadvertently given us a glimpse of just how powerful an RTX 4090 Ti can be using the AD102.
Analysis: Generationally, the RTX 4090 Ti may blow its predecessor out of the water
Let’s break down the numbers quickly. The RTX 4090 will have 16,384 CUDA cores, while the AD102 chip can potentially max out at 18,434 – 71% more cores than the GA102 chip found inside the current-generation RTX 3090 Ti. Naturally there are more tensor and ray-tracing cores.
Since the RTX 4090 has a full 24GB of VRAM that the AD102 uses, this means we could be looking at around a 12.5% increase in performance if nothing else is done. That sounds reasonable enough to me; The RTX 3090 Ti offers about 10-15% better performance than the regular 3090 in most cases, so it will be in line with the previous generation.
RTX 4090 by doing Use the AD102’s listed maximum boost clock of 2.52GHz, so don’t expect the 4090 Ti to be overclocked – unless Nvidia has a secret AD101 chip at work. Still, a 4090 Ti equipped with a full-fat AD102 chip will no doubt Best graphics card Ever made.
When might this GPU be released? I’ve got no clue – Nvidia is playing its cards close to the book, only giving us official releases and release dates for the RTX 4090 and 4080. Still, the RTX 3000 series is dropping in price and those cards Will probably get even cheaper Once the RTX 4000 is sold out, so if you want to upgrade and have a great snap Graphics card dealKeep your eyes peeled.
