NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at CES, which took place in January this year, 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 1950 MHz rated boost for the ASUS STRIX LC, which is a large overclock—the FE ticks at 1860 MHz. Compared to other RTX 3090 Ti cards we tested today, performance differences are slim, only a few percent here and there.

Averaged over our brand-new 25 game test suite at 4K resolution, we find the ASUS RTX 3090 Ti STRIX LC to be a whopping 12% faster than the RTX 3090, which is very impressive. This makes the card 15% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti, and 25% faster than the RTX 3080. Against 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 quickly enough. At lower resolutions, the RTX 3090 Ti is just too CPU limited; you can see this in our benchmark results, where all 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 NVIDIA's 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 doesn't help 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 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 a way 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 tested the ASUS STRIX LC Liquid Cooled cooler design in several reviews before. It's a well-designed, self-contained, prefilled cooling solution that works very well. Of course, you'll need space for it in your case. In the case of the RTX 3090 Ti, the STRIX LC has one advantage: It's "only" triple-slot, while other designs are quad-slot, taking up a lot of space and possibly blocking some motherboard slots you need for other add-in cards. What I also like about the STRIX LC is that its backplate is thick, with some surface structure, which gives the whole product a higher-quality look and feel. While temperatures are amazingly low with just 55°C, fan noise is very high with 46.6 dBA, which is loud, louder than anything else we've tested in recent years except for the AMD Vega 64 reference card. I reported this to ASUS, and they are looking into it. We may get a BIOS update that improves noise levels. There's no reason this card has to be so loud. The radiator is totally adequate for the heat output; it simply seems fan settings were too aggressively set. Unfortunately NVIDIA isn't providing any samples of the Founders Edition. The RTX 3090 non-Ti FE runs very quiet and the fan profile is well-tuned for the capabilities of the cooler. NVIDIA confirmed to us that the 3090 Ti FE cooler is nearly identical to the non-Ti version, but with "a tweaked vapor chamber for improved performance", so I suspect the FE will be a great alternative for people who like low noise. ASUS does include a dual BIOS feature with the STRIX LC, which lets you engage a "quiet" mode that produces "just barely acceptable" noise levels. With 39 dBA, it is considerably louder than the air-cooled MSI Suprim X, and temperatures are only slightly increased over the default setting. I have no doubt that with a manual fan curve, you'll be able to achieve impressive noise levels at good temperatures on the STRIX LC. What is worth mentioning is that the pump is always running at a very quiet 24 dBA, which will be inaudible unless you have build a completely passive system, in which case it'll be a very faint hum, not annoying in any way.

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. The lateral blower pushes heat outward by design, but the radiator should ideally be stuck to a fan vent pointing upward. Going forward, and assuming future graphics card generations will use just as much power, this will be an interesting challenge for case designers. ASUS has set a high power limit of 480 W for their card, and gives you the biggest manual adjustment range of all cards tested today—up to 516 W. 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, which is 25% worse than AMD's RDNA2 offerings. The whole 12-pin/16-pin power connector drama leading up to this launch turned out to be for nothing as the card runs perfectly fine with the bundled 3x 8-pin adapter. NVIDIA made sure the card produces its best performance 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, and the ASUS STRIX LC is listed online for $2,200. That is 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 the +10% performance increase over the RTX 3090, which sells for $1,900 right now, slightly above $2,000 doesn't seem crazy. The ASUS STRIX LC doesn't add that much and is held back by the cooler's settings, which result in a lot of noise. Of course, if you're looking to break records and want to overclock to the maximum, you should consider it for its ultra-strong VRM, high power-limit setting, and good cooler. On the other hand, graphics card prices have been coming down a lot in recent weeks, and I suspect they will keep dropping. 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 think that the scalpers won't be snatching up these cards, and supply should end up being sufficient for the few people who will be 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 it's considerably slower, you can find it for around $1,250 these days—still a lot, but much closer to the $1,000 mark than the RTX 3090 Ti.