GeForce RTX 3090 Founder review - Product Photos

Product Photos

GeForce RTX 3090 has been fitted with 24 Gigabytes of GDDR6X memory, it runs at 19.5 Gbps (effective data rate), that is a lot of bandwidth. We'll show you the specification details on the next pages. But yeah, eye candy first. The cooling design has been overhauled for the Founder cards with what NVIDIA is marketing as dual axial-flow through thermals. Basically, at the bottom side air is being pulled in, the hot air is then exhausted at the top and connector port sides. The RTX 3080 and 3090 cards all get HDMI 2.1 connectors as well as the latest iteration in DisplayPort. The cards get the new 12-pin power connecter header (converter cable included that feeds from two 8-pin connectors). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition is delivered in a very premium, soft-touch paperboard box. The bundled items include an adapter that converts two 8-pin PCIe power inputs to a 12-pin power connector and documentation. The GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition card feels premium when you have it in your hands; there is a very great detail to the finish of the product. One note has to be made here, it's big alright and it will consume some real estate inside your PC. The most obvious feature of the new 30 series is that unusual fan configuration. The IO panel is used as an air vent and shows four display connectors, three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 connectors that will bring 8K 60 Hz HDR to a single HDMI cable. No more USB type-C VirtualLink connector, as that one is going the way of the dodo. 

It weighs in at almost 2 kg (!), which is a heavyweight in this class these days for a premium graphics card. You will also see the new 12-pin (MicroFit 3.0) connector. It is an oddity, alright. The connector would work with native PSU cables quite well, the adapter, however, is a bit clumsy and difficult to hide. The advantage though is the connector can pass at least 300 watts of power, twice that of a single 8-pin PCIe connector. Opposed to the RTX 3080, the RTX 3090 does come with an NVLINK connector, but we doubt you'll need to go that multi-GPU route anytime soon. Neither do we recommend it these days, as SLI is a thing of the past. The card will look great in a dark design PC, but even on an open test-bench that's a nice but, daaaumn Sir, big looking dude.