Gamers Nexus Tests 4090 FE

Question

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9vC9NBL8zo

The card lives up to the hype. It has upwards of 75% performance gain over the previous generation 3090 and 3080 TI. Thermals are decent for this card although they are on the high side and can become a problem in a smaller case with questionable airflow.

Power spikes tend to last a little longer than previous gen cards. As Steve mentions it could shutdown a PSU that is not able to supply the necessary power.

He mentioned in the testing that you want to use all 4 connectors on the smart cable adapter because it is responsible for providing the power this card will need. If you use 3 connectors instead of 4, the 4090 will know that and you will lose performance.

So now that we have some testing, it’s going to be interesting what Dell’s design team will have to do to make this work in the R15/16 updated case. My guess is there will have to be compromises made to make this work. Let’s see but yeah, the 4090 definitely lives up to the hype and at $1600 has decent value over the 4090 TI that’s in the $1000+ range.

Vanadiel · Answer

Value is what consumers believe it to be worth. A top tier card like this will only appeal to a small segment of the consumer market. Personally I don't think it's worth $1,600. Soon they will need to sell cards the way they sell phones; over a 2 year plan so more people can afford it.

Vanadiel · Answer

I don't think they will drop that much because there is no incentive for them to lower the pricing on a flagship card. They make their money from 4060 and 4050 cards. This is just some extra money for them.

RodsterB · Answer

To someone who wants to play their game at a high level with high framerates, it could offer real value. If I was told I could play Microsoft Flight Simulator with maxed out graphics settings in 4K and deliver a consistent 60FPS minimum, I would consider saving my pennies. With the ensuing global PC slowdown, I am expecting these cards to begin dropping in price and my expectation is for this card to sell in the neighborhood of $999 once the previous gen has cleared out and the 4090 has been on the market for 8-12 months. We now have a better chance of that without the crypto miners sucking up all the GPU inventories.

Vanadiel · Answer

Those OC values are super juicy. That is close to the maximum power supplied by 4 x 8 pin connectors. Only the best PSU's will be able to handle that kind of load.

675 is the maximum power that can be supplied with 4 x 8 connectors + PCIe

DELL-Chris M · Answer

From the video, note they are using a 1600W PSU =   Updated with data from Engadget =

Vanadiel · Answer

I am predicting many power supplies and possible motherboards are going to go boom when subjected to a 666.6 Watt load.

The new PCIe 5 standard:

PCIe 5.0 power supplies

The specification allows for a 150W cable option, a 300W cable option, a 450W cable option, and even a 600W cable option, so make sure you know your GPUs power requirements before pairing it with your new PCIe 5.0 power supply.

As for the PCIe 5.0 rating on a PSU? Well, that is because PCIe 5.0 is not just a bus, it is also a standard which describes how power spikes are dealt with, as well as the overall limits.

So the new single cable can provide a maximum of 600 Watts to the GPU. The remaining power is 75 Watts from the PCIe bus, for a total of 675 Watt absolute maximum when adhered to the standard.

If a card draw 666.6 Watts, you are very close to the total maximum. One little spike and you will trip the PSU, or worse, damage the PCIe power circuit on the motherboard.

Either way, that is pretty crazy.

Vanadiel · Answer

If you are using the adaptor they use the 4 sensing pins to determine how many you have actually plugged into it. If you have 3 out of 4 8 pin plugged in it will drop the power consumption to 450 Watt.

So that tells me the card is designed from the ground up to allow OEM builders to configure the power configuration based on the thermals of the case/cooler. It will allow them to select from 150/300/450/600 Watts "profiles" without having to make a custom BIOS. Just have to connect 1/2/3/4 of the sensing pins to ground to enable the power profile.

Vanadiel · Answer

This is a bit different because Nvidia has designed this to be part of any card. So any system can be throttled down, even the 3080.

I can see this being a disaster for aftermarket power cables, because they might be disabling 1 or more connectors on purpose to make an extra buck.

This high power draw of the 4090 is going to make PSU's fail if they are not build with the best components, and I doubt we will see a 4090Ti.

I cannot imagine the heat this will produce in many of the cramped OEM cases...

RodsterB · Answer

Tom's posted an article on how you can get full power with just three connectors by splicing them together. They obviously don't advise it and no one here as well but it can be done. Doing so could result in burned out hardware and a possible fire if the wires receive too much of a load.

RodsterB · Answer

FYI, Nvidia decided to unlaunch the RTX 4080 12GB card.. According to Tom’s the 4080 12GB has a 192 bus and is basically an updated 3060 TI. The 4080 16GB is essentially an updated 3070.

RodsterB · Answer

Tom's posted an article where a 4090 caused a power connector to melt.   https://www.tomshardware.com/news/rtx-4090-first-melted-adapter-cable

Vanadiel · Answer

Too much love will kill you. In this case, to much power will kill it.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB vs GeForce RTX 4090 24GB

Test PC =
Windows 10 Pro
Core i9-12900K
MSI MPG Z690 Force
32GG RAM DDR5 5200MHz
CPU Cooler - be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB
GeForce RTX 4090 24GB
SSD - 2xSAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 1TB
Power Supply CORSAIR RM850i 850W

Alienware Desktops

Gamers Nexus Tests 4090 FE

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