NVIDIA RTX 4090: 450 W vs 600 W 12VHPWR

[crmaris]

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 requires between 400 and 600 W of power. We pair it with a Seasonic VERTEX GX-1200 to determine whether there is any difference in performance or stability between 450 W and 600 W 12VHPWR connectors.

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[sector-z]

To bad that it was not tested with a good card that support 600W

 

[crmaris]

I am waiting for one from Asus, so this will be next!

 

[xorbe]

The peak spikes, were they immediately preceded or followed by the peek dips?

 

[crmaris]

Typically yes. I have some detailed graphs on the last page.

 

[fancucker]

I am waiting for one from Asus, so this will be next!

And it won't be significant there either.
The outcry over the whole fiasco is engineered and meaningless.
Nvidia has engineered one of the greatest generational cards in recent memory and people are desperate to detract from it because like with ray tracing they can't accept the necessary changes in the industry to deliver top-tier gaming performance.

 

[maxfly]

I want your Vertex.

 

[marios15]

So the +12VHPWR improves your winter heater's efficiency, without losing performance!

 

[R0H1T]

Wow nearly 700W power spikes, better get this GPU a new connection separately

 

[trsttte]

I found this testing a bit confusing, what was the point, validate the sideband pins are doing their thing?

If the power limit setting was the same 500w, the card could still draw the 50w extra from the bus on a 450w cable so the borderline difference probably comes to stability and losses on the motherboard bus.

A test I'd like to see is performance scaling with the power limit set to like 300w and 200w, that would be interesting

 

[Dragokar]

Nice Idea and Artikel but why do you call it legacy PCIe connector. It is simply a 8 Pin PCIe power connector, nothing legacy there....

 

[Chrispy_]

Whoa, so you think a 4090 at 450W is being so starved of power that the GDDR6X is faulting heavily and being slowed down by ECC?!

I wasn't going to buy the 4090 for myself anyway, but the more time reviewers like you get to play with overclocking and power testing the crazier and dumber it looks as a product.

 

[crmaris]

Nice Idea and Artikel but why do you call it legacy PCIe connector. It is simply a 8 Pin PCIe power connector, nothing legacy there....

because it will be the past soon enough. You see 1200W ATX v3.0 PSUs only have six 6+2 PCIe and a single 12+4.

 

[gomer501]

It'd be nice if you tested it with a more modest psu. If it's going to work with any older psu, it'll always work with a Seasonic Titanium rated one. A gold rated by a less notable manufacturer or a generic rebrand like a corsair would be interesting along with maybe an 850w unit to see if it copes with the load or shuts down. My last build I went full retard with a mini-itx, 5950x, and 6900xt ( cheaper than 3080 right then) and a 750w corsair sfx couldn't handle it while a 650w seasonic sfx was fine.

 

[Tomgang]

well maybe i can come to use here. I have a asus rtx 4090 Tuf oc. It has 600 watt power limit. But forget that power limit. 4090 is voltage limit.

I have torture my card with Furmark and a overlcock meaning gpu bosot up to 3030 mhz. Even with furmark and extreme burn-in test activated in settings. It peaked at 544 watt.

For games. i just testet Red dead redemption. 4K all "look good candy" cranked to max. stock 80-81 FPS. The same area with power target set to 133 % or 600 watt and a oc at 190+ for gpu and 1350 + for memory. Gave me 83-84 FPS and a up to 100 watt more use. So 2-3 FPS more for 100 watt more use. My reccomendation = just keep your card at stock. oc is not worfh it on RTX 4090. To much more power use with out any major performance boost.

 

[mechtech]

Will you be doing a full on review of that PSU?

 

[Solaris17]

Will you be doing a full on review of that PSU?

yes please!

 

[Icon Charlie]

Thank you for the test and article. Good info to chew on.

 

[Space Lynx]

@crmaris a seasonic vertex!!! nice to see them finally out in the wild... waiting on one myself as I am doing new build with a 13600k soon.

December release date I think I read. any chance you can ask Seasonic if any Titanium rated 3.0 PSU's will be out before end of January? I have always wanted a titanium unit, partially just because it sounds neat

 

[LeeHwak]

So no difference between the adapter cable and the single 12VHPWR huh. But here is a thing that's bugging me.

the 3090TI has the same 12VHPWR connector as the 4090. 12+4. so if the 3090TI adapter worked without the 4 pins, shouldn't it also work on the 4090? I mean both the 3090TI and the 4090 have similar PCBs. so what worked for 3090TI should work for the 4090. same power connector. if the 3090TI didn't need the 4 sense pins then the 4090 doesn't need them too right?

Unless Nvidia made the sense pins active on the 4090 but not on the 3090TI. so you must have them on the 4090 but not on the 3090TI. and if that is that case, then why have the 12VHPWR connector on the 3090TI? do those sense pins even work on the 3090TI?

In theory the cables should be both are backwards compatible and forward compatible on both the 3090TI and the 4090 since both cards have the same 12VHPWR power connector.

 

[Max(IT)]

I don’t like the video card choice you made here, and I suspect the “poor” VRM solution is an explaination for some weird behavior here.
I’d like to see the same test with a reference Nvidia Founder Edition and an high end custom version, just to see the difference.

 

[Minus Infinity]

The more I read about the 4090 the more I can't wait for 7800XT and 7900XT reviews.

 

[PapaTaipei]

Good article

 

[Max(IT)]

The more I read about the 4090 the more I can't wait for 7800XT and 7900XT reviews.

I don’t think they are going to compete in the same league.
But I have hope they could be more favorable than 4080, which is an even better point. AMD has a big opportunity here, because series 40 doesn’t look so good so far, but I’m not so confident the “new AMD” will be able to exploit it. Zen 4 demonstrated that they are focused on milking customers.

because it will be the past soon enough. You see 1200W ATX v3.0 PSUs only have six 6+2 PCIe and a single 12+4.

The sad thing is 1200W units become more common just because Nvidia, Intel and AMD are making unreasonable decisions driven by marketing instead of efficiency. All of that during a worldwide energy crisis.

 

[crmaris]

Will you be doing a full on review of that PSU?

Once Seasonic sends me an MP unit yes.