nVidia 3090 reviews thread

[BFG10K]

Written:

Custom-Designs der GeForce RTX 3090 im Test

Wie schnell die Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 wirklich ist, klärt ComputerBase mit Custom-Designs von MSI und Gigabyte im Test.

www.computerbase.de

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Review: BFGPU Benchmarks Unleashed

Right now, the GeForce RTX 3090 is the single most powerful graphics card money can buy. It sits at the pinnacle of NVIDIA’s product stack currently

hothardware.com

ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity Review

Zotac's GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity comes at the NVIDIA MSRP of $1499. It offers 24 GB VRAM paired with a large triple-fan, triple-slot cooler that ensures temperatures and noise levels stay low. Outside of gaming, the fans will stop completely because of the fan-stop capability.

www.techpowerup.com

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjcxrfEVhc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgs-VbqsuKo

 

[Muadib]

I have a RTX 3090 FE on the way that I bought from Best Buy, Tuesday. I got it because I was shocked that it was in stock, but I did no research on it. Is the FE model a good card?

 

[brianmanahan]

I have a RTX 3090 FE on the way that I bought from Best Buy, Tuesday. I got it because I was shocked that it was in stock, but I did no research on it. Is the FE model a good card?

i've heard it's better than nvidia's past FE models. better than the zotac 3090 i got, but that was all i could get my hands on.

only thing that some people haven't liked with the 3090 FE is the weird angle that the power plugs come out of the side, but i never thought it was a big deal

 

[Muadib]

i've heard it's better than nvidia's past FE models. better than the zotac 3090 i got, but that was all i could get my hands on.

only thing that some people haven't liked with the 3090 FE is the weird angle that the power plugs come out of the side, but i never thought it was a big deal

Cool! Thanks man!

 

[CP5670]

The FE may actually be the best card for the price. It's cheaper than any of the AIB models at this point, and the cooler is much bigger than the 3080 one and better than some of the AIB coolers.

 

[Mopetar]

I think it comes down to what you can get your hands on and how much above the MSRP.

 

[brianmanahan]

I think it comes down to what you can get your hands on and how much above the MSRP.

yeah prices are even crazier now, i think asus jacked all their cards up by 200$

 

[Mopetar]

yeah prices are even crazier now, i think asus jacked all their cards up by 200$

That doesn't really matter if the market prices remains the same. All that's changed is that ASUS is taking most of the additional profit that was being left for some other middleman to take. Apparently some of this price increase is to offset tariffs that are going to be taking effect, which both companies would have known were coming. If this truly is the case, they were both massive idiots for not pricing cards they knew would be in short supply at the higher prices that would come anyways due to tariffs at the onset.

 

[CP5670]

If you're near a Microcenter, they get a few cards each morning. The prices are a little above MSRP but not nearly as bad as some of the online shops. The Paterson, NJ store I got mine in has a lower sales tax as well. The 3090 actually seems a bit easier to find in stock than the 3080 or 3070. Maybe the high price and the 3080ti news has made it less attractive, but I would take a 3090 for $1600 over a marked up 3080 for $1100-1200 on ebay/offerup.

 

[Muadib]

If you're near a Microcenter, they get a few cards each morning. The prices are a little above MSRP but not nearly as bad as some of the online shops. The Paterson, NJ store I got mine in has a lower sales tax as well. The 3090 actually seems a bit easier to find in stock than the 3080 or 3070. Maybe the high price and the 3080ti news has made it less attractive, but I would take a 3090 for $1600 over a marked up 3080 for $1100-1200 on ebay/offerup.

What about cpus? Do they have 5950x or 5900? The website always shows oos when I check it in the morning.

 

[CP5670]

I haven't checked those. If it says OOS, it's not worth going. Even if it's in stock, they may sell out by the time you reach the store, and the website is not always updated right away. You have to see it in stock in the morning and be there at the store opening time.

 

[CP5670]

On another note, I just noticed there are literally about 100 different models of these cards out there. I have never heard of half these companies and don't think they are sold in the US.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Specs

NVIDIA GA102, 1695 MHz, 10496 Cores, 328 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 24576 MB GDDR6X, 1219 MHz, 384 bit

www.techpowerup.com

Most of them just differ in looks, but some have weird things like an extra fan tacked on the back. There are several models with the exact same design as the PNY one, which may be some kind of reference but non-FE design Nvidia made for OEMs. The Gigabyte vision card looks nice. Elsa is an interesting one, I had an Elsa Geforce 3 back in the day and had no idea they were still in business.

 

[repoman0]

What about cpus? Do they have 5950x or 5900? The website always shows oos when I check it in the morning.

I haven't checked those. If it says OOS, it's not worth going. Even if it's in stock, they may sell out by the time you reach the store, and the website is not always updated right away. You have to see it in stock in the morning and be there at the store opening time.

My MC doesn't update stock numbers online -- definitely depends on the store. There is a non-official MC discord channel that I've used to time my trips there with really good luck. People will post what they have available every day and whether they're sold out. Only ever have been midday or evening and never waited in line for my 3080 and 2x 5900x. The store is 10 min away and I'm working from home so easy to hop in the car if someone says they have something that I want.

 

[alcoholbob]

Yeah these cards beg for undervolts. What continues to amaze me is how incredibly silent my card (MSI 3090 Suprim) is. Incredible piece of engineering. I've read online that it supposedly has some sort of switch between Silent and Gaming BIOS, but given my experience with ridiculous voltages and wattages i don't care about what Gaming brings to the table.
And LEDs are cancer, i have mine in Meshify S2 case, had to move my top fans to block the light, of all places it has some minor logo on backplate, kinda wish that instead of wasting a good switch on BIOS switching, they had turn off ALL LEDs switch instead.

The main thing that annoys me with the 30 series is they've installed a minimum fan speed on all models this time rather than just the reference. I don't know if its AIB laziness in writing BIOS's or if it's something Nvidia required. In the past you could set your own curve on higher end AIB models to keep say a 10% fanspeed on idle or something, and then ramp up when you start gaming. Now it's just the default Nvidia fan stop mode, which isn't really that great, its just a cycle where you wait for the idle temps to creep up to 60C and then the fans start blasting until you get down to 40C again, and rinse and repeat. So you get silence for 10 minutes followed by a minute of the fan blasting. Meh. Hopefully 40 series will be more efficient and won't be tied down to these giant coolers with these locked down BIOSes and we will get our customization back again.

 

[JoeRambo]

The main thing that annoys me with the 30 series is they've installed a minimum fan speed on all models this time rather than just the reference. I don't know if its AIB laziness in writing BIOS's or if it's something Nvidia required. In the past you could set your own curve on higher end AIB models to keep say a 10% fanspeed on idle or something, and then ramp up when you start gaming. Now it's just the default Nvidia fan stop mode, which isn't really that great, its just a cycle where you wait for the idle temps to creep up to 60C and then the fans start blasting until you get down to 40C again, and rinse and repeat. So you get silence for 10 minutes followed by a minute of the fan blasting. Meh. Hopefully 40 series will be more efficient and won't be tied down to these giant coolers with these locked down BIOSes and we will get our customization back again.

I think custom curve is still possible with MSI afterburner. I had the same problem with my 1080TI ( Strix i think ). Esp when playing games like EU4 it was uber annoying, GPU usage is limited and card went into cycle of fans on and off, was impossible to tolerate such cycling. So i have "fixed" it in MSI Afterburned by setting minimum 30% or so fan speed and custom curve.
With MSI 3090 Suprim i don't have that issue, but it could be simply due to it having absolutely massive heatsink and me not playing the right game that uses just "right" amount of power. But I am certain MSI afterburner still works, so i will still be able to reign in. Noise is not an issue with "Silent" BIOS, can't really comment about how "Gaming" BIOS behaves tho.

 

[alcoholbob]

I think custom curve is still possible with MSI afterburner. I had the same problem with my 1080TI ( Strix i think ). Esp when playing games like EU4 it was uber annoying, GPU usage is limited and card went into cycle of fans on and off, was impossible to tolerate such cycling. So i have "fixed" it in MSI Afterburned by setting minimum 30% or so fan speed and custom curve.
With MSI 3090 Suprim i don't have that issue, but it could be simply due to it having absolutely massive heatsink and me not playing the right game that uses just "right" amount of power. But I am certain MSI afterburner still works, so i will still be able to reign in. Noise is not an issue with "Silent" BIOS, can't really comment about how "Gaming" BIOS behaves tho.

You can do a custom curve, it just turns off Fan Stop. Also with a 30% BIOS enforced baseline fan speed now it's a choice between having fan stop or a custom curve, which is kind of annoying. Before you could have your own custom fan stop setup by having a fan curve that went all the way down to 0.

 

[CP5670]

I'm noticing this issue too. It never goes below the 30% limit in the BIOS regardless of the custom fan curve. The model I have doesn't do fan stop at all without changing the BIOS. The fans are inaudible outside games though, so it's not a big deal.

 

[Det0x]

Cold air benching

5950x + msi 3090 supreme x (stock cooler and bios at 450w max)

Port Royal = 14789 @ https://www.3dmark.com/pr/806231

• Graphics Score = 14789

TIME SPY =21861 @ https://www.3dmark.com/spy/17668229

• Graphics Score = 22575
• CPU Score = 18540

TIME SPY EXTREME = 11557 @ https://www.3dmark.com/spy/17667597

• Graphics Score = 11577
• CPU Score = 11450

FIRE STRIKE = 41342 @ https://www.3dmark.com/fs/24722879

• Graphics Score = 45888
• Physics Score = 44869
• Combined Score = 22218

FIRE STRIKE extreme = 25679 @ https://www.3dmark.com/fs/24722908

• Graphics Score = 26227
• Physics Score = 44859
• Combined Score = 14282

FIRE STRIKE ULTRA = 14329 @ https://www.3dmark.com/fs/24722939

• Graphics Score = 13996
• Physics Score = 44727
• Combined Score = 7785

WILD LIFE = 116589 @ https://www.3dmark.com/fs/24722939

Newest nvidia 27.21.14.6089 driver scores lower than 27.21.14.6109 in firestrike i think (?)

 

[brianmanahan]

i've had to turn browser GPU acceleration off for a couple months with my 3090

otherwise youtube videos cause the NVIDIA driver to lock up and turn the whole screen black, once every few videos

the problem has existed for some people since the cards came out but NVIDIA has found no way to fix it yet

i think i could fix it by setting the GPU to always "prerfer maximum performance", but then that causes it to use 100 more watts all day even when not necessary

 

[2blzd]

Are there any tests out there that show how the 3090 scales with CPU performance? Wanting to see if my i7 6800k is a bottleneck at this point.

 

[aigomorla]

Are there any tests out there that show how the 3090 scales with CPU performance? Wanting to see if my i7 6800k is a bottleneck at this point.

depending on the resolution, i really don't think you will be bottlenecked..

possibly if you like running your games @ 720 or 1080.
But if you can afford a 2000 dollar video card (after tax and shipping) most likely you will have a ultra wide 1440p or a 4k.

 

[Golgatha]

depending on the resolution, i really don't think you will be bottlenecked..

possibly if you like running your games @ 720 or 1080.
But if you can afford a 2000 dollar video card (after tax and shipping) most likely you will have a ultra wide 1440p or a 4k.

Looking back and comparing some of the Time Spy 1440p 3D Mark results, there is about a 7% positive difference between my result and some I've seen in this thread. Only difference is their CPU is 5.1Ghz versus mine at 4.8Ghz, which would be roughly 6% faster at 1440p. Also, going from a Ryzen 3700X to a 5800X, I still get single digit idle times running Forza 4 on the 5800X versus like 30% idle time on the 3700X. The IPC and clock speed CPU increases scale pretty linearly with a RTX 3080 (what I was using up until recently) from what I've measured, so it stands to reason the same would hold true for a 3090.

TLDR - You'll get great frames regardless with a 3090, but at 1440p the CPU can still bottleneck from what I've seen in benchmarks Online and with my own testing.

 

[Golgatha]

Are there any tests out there that show how the 3090 scales with CPU performance? Wanting to see if my i7 6800k is a bottleneck at this point.

Here's a 3rd party example relevant to your CPU. Only 1.1% difference between a 3090 and 3080 in Time Spy at 1440p with an Intel Core i9 10980XE, which is pretty similar performance wise to your 6800k.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Review: BFGPU Benchmarks Unleashed - Page 3

Right now, the GeForce RTX 3090 is the single most powerful graphics card money can buy. It sits at the pinnacle of NVIDIA’s product stack currently - Page 3

hothardware.com

Going from a 3080 to 3090 on my 5800X, my Time Spy graphics score increased by 20% (my 3080 is a pretty vanilla 3080) at 1440p. This tells me the Intel Core i9 10980XE is clearly a CPU bottleneck.

Result not found

www.3dmark.com

Result not found

www.3dmark.com

 

[CP5670]

An older CPU will limit framerates at lower resolutions, but It's easy to max out a 3090 with either RT or VR. These things actually make a 3090 struggle and I have to run those games at a lower resolution than I would like, which is especially noticeable in VR.

 

[Muadib]

An older CPU will limit framerates at lower resolutions, but It's easy to max out a 3090 with either RT or VR. These things actually make a 3090 struggle and I have to run those games at a lower resolution than I would like, which is especially noticeable in VR.

What game, and are you using DLSS? You have the larger version of my future monitor, so I'm concerned.

 

[CP5670]

What game, and are you using DLSS? You have the larger version of my future monitor, so I'm concerned.

I played Control with RT/DLSS at 1080p to get 75+fps. DLSS causes some blurring but is much better than running 1080p natively or not using RT. In VR, the default 1.4x supersampling on my headset makes most games struggle to hit the refresh rate (Star Wars Squadrons, Project Cars 2, Overload, etc.). I use 1.0x instead, which runs much better but is a quite noticeable drop in image clarity, even with Nvidia's VRSS enabled. Other games without RT or VR generally run very nicely at 4K at 100+fps.