An exciting new rumor has arrived suggesting that the next-gen Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card could be seriously powerful – and that could spell a big problem for AMD.
A few days ago, a reliable leaker posted that the AD102 chip, believed to be the high-end Nvidia RTX 4090, should find it “easy to reach 2.8GHz, at least not too hard”. That’s exciting enough, with the RTX 3090’s base clock hitting a respectable 1.7GHz. Thus, the RTX 4090 already appears to be much faster than its predecessor.
However, the leaker, kopite7kimi, who has a strong track record of accurate leaks, has now returned to the topic, tweeting that “I must say that we can expect a much higher frequency.”
I must say that we can expect a much higher frequency.June 30, 2022
As HardwareTimes reports (opens in new tab)This suggests that the RTX 4090’s clock boost, which will kick in when you’re playing graphics-intensive games, can break the 3GHz barrier – and liquid-cooled custom models can go even further.
This potentially means that the RTX 4090 could be an absolute beast when it comes to performance and could crush AMD’s competition. AMD is also set to release high-end graphics cards later this year, and the company has traditionally struggled to match the raw firepower of Nvidia’s high-end gaming GPUs.
If this rumor is true, AMD has a real fight on its hands, and it’s a fight we don’t think it can win. However, it would be a blow to AMD if Nvidia returned to having the most powerful gaming GPU of the generation.
While that might mean the high-end GPU war is over before it even started, an RTX 4090 with that kind of speed would come at a serious price – and we’re not just talking in a financial sense.
Review: Is the Nvidia RTX 4090 worth getting excited about?
If this new rumor is for the money, it looks like the RTX 4090 could be a big step up from the RTX 3090. While they both likely have the same memory (24GB GDDR6X), but the big difference in clock speeds can be seen (by HardwareTimes’ ), the RTX 4090 delivers an impressive 100 teraflops of power – a huge increase over the RTX 3090’s 37.6 TF rating.
So expect the RTX 4090 to be expensive. Very expensive. But, as we mentioned earlier, there will be other costs. Despite being built on TSMC’s most efficient 5nm process node, the RTX 4090 is rumored to require 600W to run. This is a huge amount, with the already power-hungry RTX 3090 having a TGP of 350W. If true, that means many people may need to invest in a more powerful PSU for their PC – which can be an expensive and time-consuming upgrade.
These types of energy demands can also have an impact on operating costs, especially at a time when many people are seeing their energy bills soar.
A GPU that absorbs this kind of power will also need a robust cooling solution to prevent overheating. That could lead to a big three-slot design again, like the RTX 3090, and even advanced liquid cooling solutions for any model that wants to hit the kind of high clock speeds these rumors promise.
All of this leads to a GPU that can be very powerful and certainly impressive, but may once again be out of reach for most gamers. This will make some people find it hard to get excited, even if it ends up being one of the best graphics cards ever made.