NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at CES this year, in January, but then it was mysteriously absent for a while and finally launches today. We have four GeForce RTX 3090 Ti reviews for you: the ASUS RTX 3090 Ti STRIX Liquid Cooled, EVGA RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 Ultra, MSI RTX 3090 Ti Suprim X, and RTX 3090 Ti AMP Extreme.

Architecturally, the RTX 3090 Ti is based on the same GA102 GPU as the RTX 3090 non-Ti, but with more GPU cores enabled (10752 vs. 10496), and more tensor and RT cores. NVIDIA also upgraded the memory from 19.5 Gbps to 21 Gbps using the same 384-bit memory interface. Thanks to a large power limit increase across the board, the GPU clocks are also increased, to 1890 MHz rated boost for the Zotac Amp Extreme, which is a medium-sized overclock—the FE ticks at 1860 MHz. Compared to other RTX 3090 Ti cards we tested today, performance differences are slim, a few percent here and there.

Averaged over our brand-new 25 game test suite at 4K resolution, we find the Zotac RTX 3090 Ti Amp Extreme a whopping 11% faster than the RTX 3090—very impressive. This makes the card 15% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti, and 25% faster than the RTX 3080. Compared to AMD's offerings, the RTX 3090 Ti is 20% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT; it will be interesting to see if the upcoming Radeon RX 6950 XT will be able to beat that. Against the Radeon RX 6800 XT, the RTX 3090 Ti is almost 30% faster. 4K is pretty much the only resolution that makes sense for the RTX 3090 Ti. Maybe 1440p if you have a high-refresh-rate monitor and really want the FPS, but you've got to make sure you pair the card with a strong CPU that can feed frames to the GPU fast enough. At lower resolutions, the RTX 3090 Ti is just too CPU limited; you can see this in our benchmark results, where all the cards are bunched up against an invisible wall.

NVIDIA is betting big on ray tracing. The RTX 3090 Ti uses the same second-generation Ampere RT architecture as the other GeForce 30 cards, but owing to its enormous rendering power, it achieve higher FPS with ray tracing, too. Compared to AMD Radeon, the Ampere architecture executes more ray tracing operations in hardware, so they run faster, which gives the RTX 3090 Ti a large advantage over the RX 6900 XT, especially in 1st-generation ray tracing titles. Recent game releases come with toned down ray tracing effects, so they run well on the AMD-powered consoles, too. Here, the gap shrinks, but NVIDIA still has the upper hand.

Just like the RTX 3090, the RTX 3090 Ti comes with 24 GB of VRAM, which is more than any other consumer card on the market. AMD's high-end Radeon cards come with 16 GB, and the RTX 3080 Ti has 12 GB, while the RTX 3080 offers 10 GB. While 10 GB is starting to become a bottleneck in a few specific games with RT enabled, more than 16 GB is of no use in any game released thus far. There are several professional application scenarios, like rendering huge scenes, that benefit from 24 GB. Nearly all GPU render software requires that the whole scene fits into the GPU memory—if it doesn't fit, you won't get any output or the app will crash. 24 GB offers additional headroom, so you can tackle bigger problems, but optimizing the textures or geometry of your scene is always an option to reduce the VRAM requirement. Rendering on the CPU as a last resort is also possible, but will take considerably longer compared to when the GPU is accelerating the workloads, of course. The vast majority of our readers are gamers. If you are a professional needing that much memory, do let us know. I'm curious what you are working on.

We've come across the Zotac Amp Extreme cooler in several other reviews. It does a good job keeping the card cool. With 68°C, temperatures are very low, lower than necessary, which results in additional fan noise: 42 dBA is fairly loud; not sure why such a high setting was picked. The MSI Suprim X is much quieter and still runs good temperatures. Zotac does offer a dual BIOS feature with their card. The "quiet" BIOS runs considerably quieter, at "good" noise levels of 35 dBA, which is the second-best result today. Temperatures are still perfectly safe with 76°C—this is the mode you should be using at all times. Unfortunately, NVIDIA isn't providing any samples of the Founders Edition. The RTX 3090 non-Ti FE runs very quietly and has a well-tuned fan profile for the capabilities of the cooler. NVIDIA confirmed that the 3090 Ti FE cooler is nearly identical to the non-Ti version, but with "a tweaked vapor chamber for improved performance." I think the FE will be a great alternative for people who like low noise. While other vendors include a physical switch for their dual BIOS capability, Zotac offers a software-only design, which means you have to install their FireStorm software. While I can see how this makes sense to save 20 cents, I still feel a physical switch is much more user-friendly. On the other hand, you'll probably just switch once and can then uninstall the software as the setting is preserved between reboots and power cycles. When disassembling the card, I also noticed that the PCB has a large cutout. The backplate design, however, doesn't take advantage of this awesome hole in the PCB, and only a fraction of it corresponds with the vents on the backplate. A good 1.5 to 2 cm are also added to the tail-end of the card simply as an aesthetic choice—it is just hollow plastic and metal.

Keep in mind that you need decent case ventilation for the RTX 3090 Ti. Heat output of around 450 W needs to be exhausted, or the heat build-up will make your card throttle. Assuming future graphics card generations will use just as much power, this will be an interesting challenge for case designers. Zotac is using the NVIDIA FE power limit of 450 W, which is slightly lower than the 480 W setting used on other cards. Of course, a higher power limit increases power consumption, but also yields a tiny bit of extra performance. The adjustment range goes up to 495 W, which is higher than other cards tested today; only the ASUS STRIX goes higher, but the differences are small enough not to matter that much. As expected, power consumption is very high, but when taking the achieved performance into account, it roughly matches the RTX 3090. Compared to other Ampere cards, this means efficiency is 10% reduced, and 25% worse than AMD's RDNA 2 offerings. The whole 12-pin/16-pin power connector drama leading up to this launch amounted to nothing as the card runs perfectly fine with the bundled 3x 8-pin adapter and NVIDIA made sure the card performs at its best even when the four sense pins on the new connector are not connected.

NVIDIA is quoting an MSRP of $2,000 for the RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition. According to Zotac the Amp Extreme will come in at the same price point—no premium over the FE, which is very nice. This is still A LOT of money. Most people won't be able to afford such a graphics card. But just like the RTX 3090, I'm sure the RTX 3090 Ti will sell. Considering a +10% performance increase over the RTX 3090, which sells for $1,900 right now, that price difference doesn't seem outrageous. On the other hand, graphics card prices have been coming down a lot in recent weeks, and I feel they will keep dropping still. This puts the RTX 3090 Ti in a tight spot—just a year ago, people would have lined up to buy these cards at $2,000. Today, I don't think scalpers will be snatching up these cards, and supply should be sufficient for the few able to afford the RTX 3090 Ti. This product cycle is also quite late. The next GPU generation is starting to appear on the horizon, so a lot of people might be waiting for those cards. In terms of alternatives, the RTX 3090 non-Ti is difficult to recommend at this time; rather, consider the slightly more affordable RTX 3080 Ti that's nearly as fast, but lacks the 24 GB VRAM option, which might actually be a good thing unless you're a professional who really needs that much memory. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is a noteworthy alternative, too. While considerably slower, you can find it for around $1,250 these days—still a lot, it is much closer to the $1,000 mark than the RTX 3090 Ti.