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About three weeks on from the launch of Nvidia's RTX 4090, today we are reviewing our fifth AIB model in the form of the ASUS TUF Gaming OC. Sporting an alluring aluminium shroud, the TUF Gaming OC is arguably the best-looking card to pass through our labs, and today we find out whether or not the beauty is skin-deep, or if there is more to this card than just a pretty face…
Alongside the hefty aluminium construction, the ASUS RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC sports a number of gamer-friendly features, including dual-BIOS, a factory overclocked core, and – of course – a splash of RGB lighting.
I will also take this opportunity to point out that the RTX 4090 power adapter situation is still on-going, with the first few minutes of the video dedicated to exploring the latest developments. We will of course continue to cover the story as it unfolds.
| RTX 4090 | RTX 3090 Ti | RTX 3090 | RTX 3080 Ti | RTX 3080 | |
| Process | TSMC 4N | Samsung 8N | Samsung 8N | Samsung 8N | Samsung 8N |
| SMs | 128 | 84 | 82 | 80 | 68 |
| CUDA Cores | 16384 | 10752 | 10496 | 10240 | 8704 |
| Tensor Cores | 512 | 336 | 328 | 320 | 272 |
| RT Cores | 128 | 84 | 82 | 80 | 68 |
| Texture Units | 512 | 336 | 328 | 320 | 272 |
| ROPs | 176 | 112 | 112 | 112 | 96 |
| GPU Boost Clock | 2520 MHz | 1860 MHz | 1695 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1710 MHz |
| Memory Data Rate | 21 Gbps | 21 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps |
| L2 Cache | 73729 KB | 6144 KB | 6144 KB | 6144 KB | 5120 KB |
| Total Video Memory | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 10GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1008 GB/Sec | 1008 GB/Sec | 936 GB/Sec | 912 GB/Sec | 760 GB/Sec |
| TGP | 450W | 450W | 350W | 350W | 320W |
First, for a quick spec recap. Using TSMC's 4nm node has allowed Nvidia to vastly increase transistor count, up from 28.3 billion with GA102, to a staggering 76.3 billion with the largest Ada GPU, AD102. Accordingly, core count has gone through the roof, with the RTX 4090 home to 16384 CUDA cores, with 512 Tensor cores and 128 RT cores, with a sizeable increase to the ROP count too, up to 176.
Such a leap forward in process node has also allowed Nvidia to crank the clock speed significantly, with the RTX 4090 now sporting a 2520MHz rated boost clock. The ASUS TUF Gaming OC we are reviewing today has tweaked that further, adding an extra 145MHz out of the box.
Memory configuration is almost identical to the RTX 3090 Ti, with 24GB GDDR6X running at 21Gbps, operating over a 384-bit interface, totalling memory bandwidth of just over 1TB/s. That said, there has been a substantial upgrade to the L2 cache with the Ada architecture, with the RTX 4090 now offering 73MB, compared to 6MB for GA102.
Power draw also remains at 450W, as per the RTX 3090 Ti, though the TUF Gaming OC can reach up to 600W when overclocking.
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