The GeForce RTX 4090 went on sale on October 12, 2022. Nvidia said the card was available from add-in partners including ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac, as well as from system builders worldwide.
Nvidia claims games run up to 2X faster than on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, and up to 4X in next-generation titles with full ray tracing. Its list of showcase titles included Portal with RTX and Cyberpunk 2077, which is due an upcoming Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode upgrade. DLSS 3 launched the same day, with five supporting games available that week.
Gaming and creative work
Creators get their own numbers. Nvidia says the 4090 is up to 2X faster in creative apps. The card carries dual 8th-generation encoders with support for the AV1 codec, which the company says cuts video export times in half. Live streamers should see 40% better efficiency, and rotoscoping in Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve runs 70% faster than on the previous generation.
Software support is still arriving. DaVinci Resolve, the Vokoder plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro and Jianying were due to add dual encoder and AV1 support in updates later in October. OBS Studio is set to build in Nvidia Broadcast effects such as Virtual Background, Noise Removal and Room Echo Removal later in the year.
Outside testing
Nvidia’s figures are its own, and Tom’s Hardware reported a smaller gain. Its testing put the 4090 at about 60% faster in aggregate than the RTX 3090 Ti at 4K with maxed settings and no DLSS. DLSS 3 Frame Generation can lift frame rates, it said, but the extra frames are not “real” ones and usually add latency, so the benefit feels closer to 10 to 20 percent.
Power draw is high. The card has a 450W total graphics power budget, though across a 15-game suite at 4K ultra it averaged 390W. The hungriest games reached 450W, while others needed around 300 to 325 watts.
The 4090 was the first Ada Lovelace card. The RTX 4080 followed on November 16, 2022, the RTX 4070 Ti on January 5, 2023, and the RTX 4070 on April 13.
Sources
- GeForce RTX 4090 Out Now: Beyond Fast For Gamers & Creators
- Nvidia Ada Lovelace and GeForce RTX 40-Series: Everything We Know
Sources
- GeForce RTX 4090 Out Now: Beyond Fast For Gamers & Creators
- Nvidia Ada Lovelace and GeForce RTX 40-Series… | Tom's Hardware
