NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace generation of GPUs made big waves just weeks ago at GTC when the new architecture was first presented. Yesterday we posted our Founders Edition review, today we have seven more reviews for you: ASUS STRIX OC, Colorful Vulcan OC-V, Gigabyte Gaming OC, MSI Suprim X, MSI Suprim Liquid X, Palit GameRock OC and Zotac Amp Extreme Airo.

Unlike Ampere, which saw RTX 3080 released first, and RTX 3090 later, NVIDIA is starting with the flagship this time. The new GeForce RTX 4090 is based on the AD102 graphics processor, which is the world's first 5 nanometer GPU, fabricated at TSMC Taiwan. On the RTX 4090, NVIDIA has enabled 16384 GPU cores (+88% vs RTX 3080, +52% vs RTX 3090 Ti)—this alone will achieve a big performance boost. NVIDIA didn't just add "more", they also made their units smarter. While the CUDA Cores haven't really changed since Ampere, the company increased L2 cache significantly, up to 72 MB from 6 MB on the RTX 3090 Ti—a huge increase. The ray tracing cores got several performance improvement features, like shader execution reordering, opacity tests and micro mesh generation (more about these on the Architecture page of this review). Last, but certainly not least is DLSS 3 Frame Generation, which introduces a completely new way of increasing FPS. With Frame Generation, the GPU will automagically generate an additional frame for each frame rendered, based on the movement in each frame—doubling FPS in the process.

For a majority of gamers, the "classic" raster performance is very important though—highest settings, RT off, DLSS off—so we made sure to extensively test this scenario using 25 games at three resolutions. The GeForce RTX 4090 achieves incredible performance results here: +45% vs RTX 3090 Ti. Compared to RTX 3080 the uplift is 89%, 64% faster than Radeon RX 6950 XT. The Zotac Amp Extreme Airo is a factory overclocked variant of the RTX 4090 that's rated for 2580 MHz Boost, vs 2520 MHz on the FE, or 2.3%. Averaged over our benchmarks at 4K the card is indeed 2% faster, which isn't much, and impossible to notice subjectively. The average clock frequency across all our tests at 4K was 2755 MHz, the FE did 2701 MHz (2.0% difference).

All this testing is done at 4K resolution and that's the only resolution that really makes sense for the RTX 4090. Maybe 1440p, if you want to drive a 144+ Hz monitor at max FPS, but you'll end up a bit CPU-limited in many titles. Interestingly, when CPU limited at 1080p, the RTX 4090 is clearly behind Ampere cards in several games. It seems the new architecture has a bit higher CPU overhead, which further drags down the maximum FPS the CPU can achieve. This is more of an interesting curiosity though, not a real issue.

Where RTX 4090 can flex its muscle is with ray tracing enabled. While previously enabling RT at 4K always meant some compromises—either upscaling or reduced settings—the RTX 4090 will give you 60 FPS with RT active in nearly all titles. Taking a closer look at our ray tracing benchmarks we can see that the performance hit from enabling ray tracing is considerably lower than before, thanks to the various technological improvements. Compared to AMD, the ray tracing performance is often 3x as high—AMD has to innovate here with their next-gen, or they'll fall behind too much and NVIDIA will win ray tracing.

Zotac's Amp Extreme Airo is a new design for the GeForce 40, with a refreshing new theme. The card, which is considerably larger than the Founders Edition, is dominated by round corners, which makes the card look very smooth. Zotac's RGB illumination looks mesmerizing, it's one of the best in the industry. In terms of PCB design Zotac did a great job, the VRM is a solid 24+4 design, making it one of the strongest we've seen today. That's why I was even more surprised to see only 495 W manual adjustment range. The NVIDIA FE goes up to 600 W, which almost disqualifies the Zotac card for serious overclockers. Some other custom designs have lower limits than FE, too, so Zotac isn't alone here with this cautious approach. Thermal performance of the cooler is good, slightly better than the Founders Edition. The default BIOS fan speed is a bit high though, which makes the card slightly louder than the FE, with roughly similar temps. Things get interesting with the "quiet" BIOS; here Zotac dialed down the fan speeds considerably, which results in a very quiet experience and temps are still good. 32 dBA for a RTX 4090 running at full load achieving 4K60 with RT enabled is just impressive. This makes the Zotac Amp Extreme Airo one of the quietest cards we've reviewed today. Just like with all other GeForce RTX 4090 cards, you definitely need good ventilation in your case to get rid of all the generated heat.

We've tested NVIDIA's new DLSS 3 frame-generation capability, and I have to say I'm impressed. At first I was highly sceptical and thought it would be like the soap opera interpolation effect on TVs, but no, it works REALLY well. The algorithm takes two frames, measures how things have moved in those two frames and calculates an intermediate frame in which these things moved only half the distance. While this approach is definitely not problem-free, especially when pixel-peeping at stills or slowed down video, in real-time it's nearly impossible to notice any difference. As you run at higher FPS and resolution it becomes even more difficult because the deltas between each frame are getting smaller and smaller. I also feel like we're only seeing the beginning of this technology, and there will be numerous improvements in the future. Adoption rates should be good, because implementing DLSS 3 frame generation is very easy if you already have DLSS 2 support in your game. Another interesting NVIDIA Tech is "Reflex", which reduces the gaming latency, so you see things earlier on your screen and can react quicker, to get more kills, or survive for longer.

Thanks to the move from 8 nm Samsung to 5 nm TSMC, efficiency has improved drastically. Energy efficiency is almost doubled compared to cards like RTX 3090 / 3090 Ti, 50% better than AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT. Zotac's card consumes a little bit more power in gaming, but the difference is relatively small (346 W on FE vs 373 W on Zotac). What's a bit more relevant is the non-gaming power consumption, which went from 21 W to 33 W, probably the RGB is to blame here.

With manual OC we were able to break the 3 GHz barrier, memory overclocked a bit worse though, possibly because of the higher memory temperatures. Zotac's vapor-chamber baseplate is a little bit too small for the memory arrangement, so the chips aren't fully covered. While memory temps aren't "high", they are still a few degrees warmer than on competing RTX 4090 cards, which seems reflected in the memory OC.

Zotac wants $1700 for their Amp Extreme Airo, which is a $100 increase over the NVIDIA Founders Edition baseline pricing for RTX 4090. We're not aware of any 4090 model that sells for below $1600. These $100 get you 2% higher performance out of the box, impressive RGB lighting and a dual BIOS. I feel like the low noise levels with the quiet BIOS are the strongest selling point here. All custom designs tested today are really good and the differences are only minimal. In markets where the FE is not available, Zotac's card could be an interesting option, or maybe opt for one of the non-OC models—you won't miss the 2%, and saving $50-$100 will always help.

Due to its high pricing, GeForce RTX 4090 is not for everyone. Rather it seems NVIDIA wanted to offer a new super high-end option, and it's priced accordingly. Looking at our Performance per Dollar charts, it seems that NVIDIA picked a perf/$ value that's competitive with the RTX 3090 and Radeon RX 6950 XT in today's market, just at a higher absolute price point because much higher performance is offered, and new features too, like DLSS3. In the community there's overwhelming disagreement with the $1600 price point, and I can't blame people who are trying to pay their gas and power bills first. Still, RTX 4090 is an amazing new product that's almost flawless, and it will definitely be a hit with the people who can afford it. Everybody else? Hold out a bit longer, for the RTX 4080 and especially AMD's new Radeon RX 7000 offerings.