The upcoming Nvidia RTX 4090 appears to be the fastest GPU ever tested

By Nathan Drescher July 19, 2022

Nvidia’s RTX 30-series graphics cards are some of the best graphics cards on the market today, but the company isn’t resting on its laurels. They’ve been working on a new 40-series, one of which reportedly broke all speed records. The Nvidia RTX 4090 scored 19,000 on a 3DMark Time Spy Extreme benchmark test.

That’s fast. We’re talking blazing speeds and faster than anything else on the market. Put another way, the RTX 4090 blew the former reigning graphic processor, the liquid-cooled RTX 3090 Ti “King Pin,” out of the water. The 4090 did that without the need for liquid nitrogen.

The MSI Suprim X RTX 3080 installed in a PC. — Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Nvidia’s RTX 4090 is still shrouded in secrecy, but the good folk over at Tom’s Hardware speculate the 5nm chip could pack 60 billion transistors, hit clock speeds of 2000 MHz, and reach VRAM speeds of up to 24GBps. All of that while inhaling a whopping 500 to 600 watts of power.

By comparison, the RTX 3090 King Pin hits clock speeds of 1590Hz and boost speeds of 1950Hz. Its memory clocks in at 21GBps, and it still needs to gulp 450 watts of power to run efficiently.

So, the RTX 4090 is 30% faster while consuming just over 20% more power than the RTX 3090 Ti.

3DMark is a benchmarking tool from UL that tests graphic processor speeds. The Time Spy Extreme version is the latest and is considered the most accurate GPU benchmarking tool you can get today. The 3DMark Hall of Fame lists the RTX 3090 Ti as the fastest GPU ever tested.

The RTX 4090 hasn’t been added to the list because the test unit was not an official Nvidia release. We don’t know if the benchmarks were conducted on a leaked test unit or an official pre-release unit, and there has been no confirmation from Nvidia. There are more unknowns than knowns at this point.

What we do know is that the RTX 30-series are incredible chips, Nvidia is working on an RTX 40-series, and both chips represent insane graphic speeds. The future of gaming is good.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Nathan Drescher

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Nathan Drescher is a freelance journalist and writer from Ottawa, Canada. He's been writing about technology from around the…

Computing

I’ve reviewed every AMD and Nvidia GPU this generation — here’s how the two companies stack up

Three graphics cards on a gray background.

Nvidia and AMD make the best graphics cards you can buy, but choosing between them isn't easy. Unlike previous generations, AMD and Nvidia trade blows point-for-point in 2024, and picking a brand to go with isn't as easy as counting the dollars in your wallet.

I've reviewed every graphics card AMD and Nvidia have released this generation, comparing not only raw performance, but also features like DLSS and FSR, ray tracing performance, and how VRAM works in modern games. After dozens of graphics card reviews, here's how AMD and Nvidia stack up against each other in 2024.
Nvidia vs. AMD in 2024

Computing

Meet Blackwell, Nvidia’s next-generation GPU architecture

Nvidia introducing its Blackwell GPU architecture at GTC 2024.

We finally have our first taste of Nvidia's next generation of GPUs, named Blackwell. Sure, they're built for enterprises, and no, they won't run Cyberpunk 2077 (at least not officially). But this is the first look we've have at what Nvidia is cooking up for its RTX 50-series GPUs, which are rumored to launched sometime in the next year.

The GPU we have today is the B200 -- Blackwell 200, if you can spot it -- that comes packed with 208 billion transistors. The architecture is built on TSMC's 4NP node, which is an enhanced version of the 5nm node. It's a little surprising given that Nvidia's Ada Lovelace GPUs are built with TSMC's 4N node -- one refinement step away from 4NP. Nvidia notes that it's using a custom version of this process, however.

Computing

Nvidia is the ‘GPU cartel,’ says former AMD Radeon manager

A hand holding the RTX 4090 GPU.

AMD's former senior vice president and general manager of Radeon has come out with some strong words against Nvidia. Scott Herkelman called Nvidia "the GPU cartel" in response to a story from the Wall Street Journal in which Nvidia's customers claim that it delays GPU shipments in retaliation for those customers shopping with other suppliers.

The accusation in question comes from Jonathan Ross, CEO of AI chip startup Groq, who said, "a lot of people that we meet with say that if Nvidia were to hear that we were meeting, they would disavow it. The problem is you have to pay Nvidia a year in advance, and you may get your hardware in a year, or it may take longer, and it's, 'Aw shucks, you're buying from someone else, and I guess it's going to take a little longer.'"