[PLUS] Six custom designs with Geforce RTX 4090 in a comparison test

Huge graphics cards

Unfortunately, we start with the bad news: Actually, seven custom designs of the RTX 4090 were intended for this comparison test. But of all things, the card that adorns the lead in this article suffered a failure during the tests. No, it wasn’t the power plug that burned through, it’s more like the GPU just wouldn’t show a picture after installing the driver. We tested this on different systems, all with the same result. Since measurements by colleagues and the pictures for this test were already in the can, we decided to show the Palit RTX 4090 Game Rock in this test, at least for the sake of clarity. We point out the peculiarities and features of the card, just like the other models. However, please understand that the Palit graphics card does not appear in either the test tables or the benchmarks in this comparison test. We are already trying to find a replacement and will add the values ​​later. Furthermore, we would like to thank Zed Up, who made it possible for us to loan the Manli RTX 4090 Gallardo, a unique graphics card, for this test.

Real bangers

We remember: For Ada Lovelace aka Geforce “RTX 40”, Nvidia returns “home” to long-term partner TSMC. The Taiwanese chip forge offers the most advanced technology and has been contracted to manufacture all Ada processors. In the case of the AD102, a custom version of TSMC’s 5-nanometer process called “4N” is used. Thanks to the significantly smaller structure width compared to Samsung’s 8N, Nvidia can accommodate significantly more transistors on less silicon area in the Ada Lovelace and at the same time increase the clock rates by around 50 percent. According to the official figures for core size and transistor quantity, the AD102 packs more than 125 million circuits per square millimeter, while the GA102 (amperes) has almost 45 million – an increase by a factor of 2.7. In the case of the predecessors Turing (2018) and Pascal (2016) with contemporary production, there were still around 25 million transistors/mm². Of course, all custom designs in this comparison test also have the same chip. However, Asus and Co. usually put their hands on the clock rates and there are a few surprises, especially with the cooling design. After all, it must theoretically be able to dissipate up to 600 watts, as a handful of graphics cards allow when the power limit is increased to the maximum. Otherwise we have to dampen the expectation a bit:

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You will find the following products in the test:

• Asus RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC
• Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC
• Manli RTX 4090 Gallardo
• MSI RTX 4090 Suprim X
• PNY RTX 4090 XLR8 Gaming VERTO EPIC-X RGB
• Zotac RTX 4090 AMP Extreme Airo

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