NVIDIA RTX 3090 vs 4090 (How to Choose?)

Expert Consulted:  Adrian Gardiner. Years of experience buying both computers and computer parts for my own new customer builds has given me a keen eye for spotting great deals when shopping.  In this article, I’ll be sharing my knowledge and tips with you to find the best value.

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Second only to the CPU, graphics cards are one of the most essential components in a gaming computer setup and are responsible for determining the visual quality, frame rate, and overall performance of your games.

Two of the most talked about graphics cards in the market today are the NVIDIA RTX 3090 vs RTX 4090, both powerful graphics cards that deliver top-of-the-line gaming performance.

In this article, I’ll be comparing these two graphics cards in detail to help you decide which one is better for your current gaming needs.

NVIDIA RTX 3090 vs 4090 Graphics Card – Which to Choose?

The following sections cover a range of key aspects for these two cards to help break down which is more suitable for you.

Overview

Released in 2020 the RTX 3090, using the new Ampere architecture came out with double the RAM and was considerably faster than the previous top card, the RTX 2080 Ti but with a much higher price tag compared to other offerings at the time.

The RTX 4090 brought another huge leap in performance when it came out in 2022.

Using the new Ada Lovelace architecture, 16,348 cores the 4090 is a performance beast and is the fastest gaming card currently available on the market but again, at a huge cost.

Whether you go for the 3090 or the 4090 will depend on your particular requirements and how deep your pockets are!

Specifications

Here are the key performance metrics for each graphics card, highlighting their differences, followed by some brief explanations of some of the most important aspects, like CUDA Cores and Clock Speed.

CUDA Cores

CUDA cores are parallel processors found in NVIDIA graphics cards that are responsible for performing complex calculations required for creating the final image that you see on screen.

The more CUDA cores, the more processing power enabling a card to produce higher-quality images. Clearly, the newer RTX 4090 has a huge advantage in this area.

Clock Speed / Frequency

The clock speed or frequency of a graphics card refers to how quickly its processor can perform operations. Higher clock speed means faster performance in games and other graphics-heavy tasks.

It’s like a car’s speedometer, measuring how fast the car is going. You can adjust the clock speed (overclocking) to make the graphics card go even faster, but this can cause it to use more power and produce more heat, requiring better cooling.

The 4090 has a much higher clock speed than the 3090, with a boost figure of 2.52 GHz vs 1.7 GHz, so it wins again on the performance front.

TDP

TDP (thermal design power) means how much heat a graphics card can make when it’s working hard. It’s measured in watts and tells you how much power the card needs to work at its best.

A higher TDP means it needs more power and may make more heat, which needs better cooling.

Make sure your computer’s power supply can handle the TDP of your graphics card with a bit of extra headroom on top to ensure it never gets overly stressed (see the section below on Power Consumption).

VRAM

VRAM is the type of memory that a graphics card uses to store data temporarily. It helps the graphics card to quickly access frequently used data. The more VRAM a graphics card has, the more data it can store and access quickly.

A graphics card with more VRAM can handle more complex graphics and run games at higher resolutions with faster frame rates.

Although the amount of VRAM is the same for both cards, the memory clock speed of the 4090 has improved up to a max boosted frequency of 2520 MHz (3090 1695 MHz).

Pricing & Availability

Various events over the last few years have caused havoc both with the availability and pricing of graphics cards in general. However, availability is now improving (not helped by Elon Musk recently reported to have purchased thousands of GPUs for his AI project) and pricing has come down quite a bit.

I’ve seen the recent crazy pricing changes myself in my own business having purchased an RTX 3090 Ti last year at nearly 50% more than today’s price. It actually ended up costing a lot more than an RTX 4070 I purchased 1 month ago for another new gaming rig!

The price of either a 3090 or 4090 is still going to be very expensive though. There are graphics cards available for a lot less that are very capable of playing all the current games at maximum settings, like the RTX 3080 for example.

It’s not always necessary to get the absolute best card available to have an amazing gaming experience.

Power Consumption and Design

These are large graphics cards, each with specific needs that need to be taken into account when building into a gaming PC.

Power Consumption

Both of the cards covered in this article are big power consumers with the 4090 in particular very hungry with a TDP of 450w.

If you’re upgrading to the RTX 4090 you’ll almost certainly want to upgrade to a larger PSU and given that the RTX 4090 needs 850w minimum I would recommend aiming for a 1000w PSU to give you a bit of headroom in capacity.

For additional help on sizing a PSU for your new gaming rig, go to:

https://pc-builds.com/power-supply-calculator

Size & Slot Requirements

Although the new NVIDIA Founders Edition of the 4090 is actually slightly smaller than the 3090, the custom versions of these cards from other suppliers are likely to be a ‘lot’ larger. You’ll need to check carefully that your chosen computer case has enough space to accommodate them.

NOTE: There are different versions of these cards sold (custom versions of the same card) and the dimensions will vary a lot (i.e., the number of cooling fans on a card can be as many as 3 which affects the size). Check the sizes of the card carefully before buying to make sure it’ll fit your case.

Ray Tracing & DLSS

Both DLSS and Ray Tracing are technologies used by NVIDIA 30 and 40 series cards to enrich your gaming experience and both were improved on the 3090 and 4090 cards. I’ve outlined some of the differences in each of these technologies for both cards and the improvements made.

DLSS

DLSS (deep learning super sampling) represents a game-changing innovation in AI-based graphics delivering significant performance improvements and is available on both cards reviewed here, DLSS 2 for the 3090 and DLSS 3 for the 4090.

Leveraging the power of 4th generation Tensor Cores and the improved Optical Flow Accelerator (OFA) found in the latest 4000 series graphics cards, like the RTX 4090, DLSS 3 harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to generate an increase in higher resolution frames.

The result of DLSS 3 on the 4090 is more high-quality frames (FPS) with increased performance and much-improved gameplay through better visuals.

With DLSS running all the time, using NVIDIA’s supercomputers to train and improve, performance and resolution will continue to improve over time for the game you play, with improvements delivered via game-ready driver updates.

Ray Tracing

Introduced by NVIDIA back in 2018 with the GeForce 20 series cards, Ray Tracing tech is used to create more realistic lighting and shadows during gameplay.

In traditional graphics rendering, lighting and shadows are often pre-determined and static, but with ray tracing, virtual light sources are simulated to create more accurate reflections and shadows in real time, making for a more realistic, immersive, and visually stunning gaming experience.

DLSS and Ray Tracing Conclusion

The 3090 runs DLSS 2 with 328 tensor cores, compared with the 4090 which runs DLSS 3 and 512 fourth generation tensor cores.

With the 4090 running 3rd generation RT cores, the combination of this and DLSS 3 means a considerable performance improvement for the 4090 over the 3090.

Be aware that not all games currently support DLSS3 but the number that do is increasing all the time. At the time of writing, according to NVIDIA, there are 17 DLSS 3-supported games available with another 33 coming soon.

Conclusion

Which card you decide to purchase, I think would come down to how much you want to spend and perhaps whether you really need the extra grunt provided by the 4090 when the 3090 is such a very capable graphics card and for a lot less money too.

For me personally, I would go for the 3090 and use the savings on other components. The gaming experience will still be amazing on the RTX 3090.