Possible GeForce RTX 4090 Specs and Performance: Up to twice as powerful as GeForce RTX 3090
The GeForce RTX 4090 will become NVIDIA’s next top-of-the-line graphics card, and according to a recent leak it will be up to twice as powerful as the GeForce RTX 3090. That same leak has allowed us to see what could be the final specifications of said graphics card, and the truth is that it is impressive.
To put a little context, we must remember that the GeForce RTX 3090 came to market with 10,496 shaders, and that it is manufactured on Samsung’s 8nm node. Well, the GeForce RTX 4090 will use an AD102 graphics core, meaning it will be built on TSMC’s 5nm node, and will feature a whopping 16,128 shaders. This graphics core has a maximum of 18,432 shaders in its full configuration, but this will be reserved, in theory, for the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti.
The rest of its specifications are not clear, although at the time I made an estimate of what we could expect from the AD102 kernel in its full version. I attach it below:
- Manufactured in 5nm process.
- 18,432 shaders.
- 576 texturing units.
- 576 tensor cores.
- 144 RT cores.
- 128 raster units.
It is important to note that these specifications could be met if NVIDIA maintains, in its GeForce RTX 40, the structure that we saw in Ampere. However, in the latest leaks about Ada Lovelace we saw that this architecture could bring profound changesand that one of them would imply double the number of rasterization units, also known as ROPs for its acronym in English. If this is confirmed, the AD102 core would have a huge amount of ROPs. It’s not confirmed, so let’s take it with a grain of salt.
More details about the GeForce RTX 4090: Lower consumption than expected
Those 16,128 shaders would be supported by a 384-bit bus and a GDDR6 memory system running at 21 GHz, which would leave us with a bandwidth of 1 TB/s. To feed this graphics card we would need a powerful source, but not as much as the first rumors indicated, since in theory your TGP will be around 450 watts. With this in mind, an 850-watt power supply could be enough, as long as it is of quality, and depending on the consumption of the rest of the components.
Another important detail that we must keep in mind is that the GeForce RTX 4090 will use 4th generation tensor cores and 3rd generation RT cores, which means it will deliver much higher performance on AI and ray tracing workloads. NVIDIA has already made a significant leap with the 2nd generation RT cores in Ampere, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve been able to achieve with the 3rd generation.
In the attached table, courtesy of WCCFTech, we can see the keys to the rest of the models that will shape NVIDIA’s high-end. The GeForce RTX 4070 will be the entry model to that range, and your TGP will be quite reasonable (300 watts). In terms of performance, it will be more powerful than the RTX 3090, although the difference may end up being small. The GeForce RTX 4090 Ti would be the most powerful of NVIDIA, and this could be accompanied by 48 GB of 24 GHz GDDR6X memory.
The launch of the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series could happen earlier than expectedand it is rumored that the recommended prices will be a little higher than those who had, at the time, the GeForce RTX 30 series.
The performance improvement achieved by the second generation RT cores was very large.
RDNA3 a disappointment? It is hard to believe it
The source of this information, the well-known leaker “kopite7kimi”, has made a comment that some have overlooked, but which I find very interesting indeed. Says he’s “disappointed” with RDNA3AMD’s next-generation architecture that will compete with NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace, but she hasn’t said why, so I don’t know if it’s a matter of rasterization performance, ray tracing performance, power efficiency, or a little bit of every thing.
After seeing what happened with the Radeon RX 6000, which in the end they exceeded all expectations performance in rasterization, I think it’s best to take that comment very carefully and not anticipate anything.
We will wait to see how the Radeon RX 7000 and GeForce RTX 40 perform, and then we will draw the necessary conclusions, but always with the proper foundation. However, personally, I think the Radeon RX 7000 may end up falling short in ray tracingat least compared to the GeForce RTX 40.
