Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card review

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Pros & Cons – Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card

Pros

  • Good cooling with low noise levels
  • Dual BIOS feature is good as an option
  • Contrasting black and grey areas look great
  • Thoughtful PCIe power connector extension
  • More display outputs than NVIDIA’s reference
  • Comes with 2 x HDMI ports
  • Good PCIe power connector placement
  • Tons of memory available for content creation workload

Cons

  • Ugly software design
  • Asymmetrical fans look somewhat weird
  • Plastic fan shroud doesn’t suit its price tag

Specs

  • Stream processors: 10,496
  • Memory: 24GB
  • Connectivity: PCIe 4.0 16x
  • Base clock: 1,395MHz
  • Boost clock: 1,755MHz
  • Max resolution: 7680 x 4320 @60Hz
  • TDP: 350W
  • Display outputs: 3x Display
  • Port: 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1
  • Power connections: 2x 8-pin
  • Supported APIs: Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6

Price

The official MSRP for the GeForce RTX 3090 is $1,499.  That price separates it quite a bit from the $699 pricing of the GeForce RTX 3080.  NVIDIA even calls this video card the “BFGPU” with TITAN class performance.  

Compare Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card

RTX 3090 FEGigabyte RTX 3090 Eagle
ArchitectureGA102GA102
Process TechnologySamsung 8NSamsung 8N
Transistors (Billion)28.328.3
Die size (mm^2)628.4628.4
GPCs77
SMs8282
GPU Cores1049610496
Tensor Cores328328
RT Cores8282
Boost Clock (MHz)16951725
VRAM Speed (Gbps)19.519.5
VRAM (GB)2424
VRAM Bus Width384384
ROPs112112
TPCs4141
TMUs328328
GFLOPS FP32 (Boost)3558136211
TFLOPS FP16 (Tensor)142 (285)145 (290)
RT TFLOPS69.570.7
Bandwidth (GBps)936936
TDP (watts)350350
Dimensions (LxHxW mm)313x138x57320x128x56
Weight (g)21891384
Price$1,499$1,499

Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card review

Design

The GeForce RTX 3090 is based on the Ampere architecture and manufactured on Samsung 8nm. This video card is large in size, do not underestimate the size for your case.  It measures 12.5 inches in length, 5 inches in width, and 2.1 inches in height.  For comparison, the Founders Edition is 12.3 inches in length, 5.4 inches in width, and also 3-slot. 

Ports

You get two HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a ports here. This combination still limits you to four monitors, as that’s all NVIDIA supports, but you can mix and match more flexibly here with the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3090 Gaming OC than with cards that follow NVIDIA’s specifications that call for three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 port. 

Memory

With a staggering 10496 CUDA cores and an even more staggering 24 GB of GDD6X VRAM, this card is a fair bit more powerful than the RTX 3080. Keep in mind the RTX 2080 Ti “only” had 4352 CUDA cores and 11GB of GDDR6. When it comes to workstation and rendering tasks, we’re expecting big things from this card.

Frame rates

In Horizon Zero Dawn the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING OC plays this game extremely well at 1440p and the highest in-game settings. It provides 148FPS average and is 10% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 FE and Radeon RX 6800 XT. Overclocking it improves performance by 5% and it is now 16% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 FE.

In Watch Dogs Legion the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING OC chews through this game at 1440p with “Ultra” graphics. It provides near 100FPS average, and overclocked improves performance by 10%. Compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 FE it’s 8% faster and overclocked it’s 18% faster.

Temperature

When we set the fans to 100% and overclock it GPU temp falls to 53c.  The fans spin at around 1843 RPM, which is still low enough that they don’t make too much noise at all. The GPU temperatures were maintained at below 67°C at all times, which is decent enough. When the fan run at about 300RPM lower, averaging 1575 RPM, The temps were allowed to climb all the way up to 72°C, which the average clocks seen were 1800MHz.

Cooling

The large copper plate combines the composite heat pipes to transfer heat generated from the interior cores to the heat sink. The cooling system also uses 7 composite copper heat pipes and a large copper plate with direct contact with the GPU and VRAM for high-efficiency heat dissipation. This video card uses GIGABYTE Screen Cooling which is an extended heatsink design that allows airflow to pass through the video card.

Power consumption

The RTX 3090 FE tended to exceed the 350W TGP by about 15W in our testing. However, the Gigabyte card respects the 350W limit, which means it tends to downclock more than the FE to keep power use in check. Raising the TGP limit by 10% gives it a bit more room to stretch its legs.

Overclocking

 The GeForce RTX 3090 has 82 SMs, 10,496 CUDA Cores, 328 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 82 RT Cores (2nd Gen), and 328 Tensor Cores (3rd Gen.)  It operates with a boost clock of 1695MHz.  It has 24GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus at 19.5GHz providing 935.8GB/s of memory bandwidth.  The TDP/TBP is 350W.

The default GPU Boost clock on the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING OC is 1755MHz.  According to our gaming graph above the actual clock speed seems to stay mostly between 1755-1785MHz.  It does dip a few times below 1755MHz briefly, the lowest being 1725MHz for just the briefest of seconds.  Averaging out this clock speed the average is 1780MHz. 

Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card customer review

Awesome experience so far

Runs everything I throw at it max settings. Claims that this card uses too much power and throws too much heat I think are exaggerated. My system is perfectly cool and quiet using this card. You can undervolt it to a degree if you want more power efficiency and not lose any performance.

No problems with stability so far. Disclaimer, I’ve only played a handful of games and only have maybe 30 hours on the card. I will adjust the review as I grow my experience with it.

I notice Death Stranding allocated 20GB of the 24GB of VRAM. Not sure if its really using all that but it feels the need to allocate that. Something to check on for people thinking they are buying future proofish cards like the 3080 with half that.

settings were max everything at 4k with DLSS quality. Speaking of DLSS. Looks amazing, not noticing any artifacts and in some cases I think it actually looks better than native 4k. Granted I have not tested DLSS extensively. Mostly speaking of just Death Stranding at this point.

If you like RGB, this card is extremely basic on that front. Not very flashy. It does have Dual BIOS which is nice. I haven’t bothered overclocking it yet, if I actually have trouble running anything I’ll explore that otherwise I don’t see the point.

Two HDMI ports is also nice. Only ASUS and GIG offer this. HDMI 2.1 is superior bandwith to the 1,4a display ports. I would’ve thought a nextgen card would feature multiple of a nextgen connection but alas most of the new video cards only offer 1 for most brands including founders edition. I find this surprising and kind of ridiculous. This card is meant for 4k 120hz and you cant do that without compression methods over Display port.

As with any 3090. Its not priced fairly for gaming purposes. It’s a halo product for people who want the best and dont mind paying alot extra for not a ton of performance gains. I do think as games consume more and more VRAM this card could potentially differentiate itself more from the 3080 than it does now on present titles. Games already touch 10GB of VRAM quite often and games are only getting more advanced.

By Thricegreat at Best Buy

Alternate of Gigabyte Geforce RTX 3090 gaming OC 24G GDDR6x gaming graphics card

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

Pros
  • 16GB of VRAM
  • Power efficient
  • Performance comparable to RTX 3080
  • Rage Mode and Smart Access Memory
  • More affordable than RTX 3080
Cons
  • Ray tracing and FSR not as mature

Memory: 16GB GDDR6 | Memory bandwidth: Up to 512Gbps | Memory bus: 256-bit | Base clock: 2,015MHz | Boost clock: 2,250MHz | Stream processors: 4,608 | Process: 7nm | Power: 300W

AMD’s “Big Navi” RX 6800 XT is a bit more affordable than the RTX 3080, yet it trades performance blows and doesn’t suck up as much power. Its 16GB of VRAM are great for futureproofing, and it has a number of included features gamers will love. Just remember that its ray-tracing abilities aren’t as developed.

AMD’s “Big Navi” Radeon RX 6000 GPUs based on RDNA 2 technology bring a ton of power that puts them among the top options out there. In particular, the RX 6800 XT will generally perform as well as the RTX 3080 in 1440p and 4K games, with each card moving up and down based on other factors. The RX 6800 XT is more power efficient, sitting somewhere between the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080.

For now, no solid recommendations on which version to buy. If you find one for sale, chances are you’re going to grab it.

It has some impressive raw specs, including a whopping 16GB of VRAM that will set it up nicely for the future. If you’re buying a new GPU today and want it to last for the next five years, 8GB of RAM doesn’t look so impressive.

One big advancement with these GPUs is the addition of ray tracing, previously something only NVIDIA could offer. Your games are going to look prettier, but you’re going to see a more significant hit to performance on the AMD cards. Chalk it up to having more time to develop on NVIDIA’s part.

AMD does have something called Smart Access Memory (SAM) that can boost performance in some games. The gains aren’t huge, but they are noticeable in plenty of titles. We benchmarked Smart Access Memory to see how much of a difference it really makes. NVIDIA has since opened up Resizable BAR Support for its own GPUs, essentially making this point null.

If you’re on Team Red and want a GPU that can handle 1440p and 4K gaming, the RX 6800 XT is undeniably a great option that should cost less than the RTX 3080 once stock and prices settle.

Want to overclock and not void your warranty? AMD’s Rage Mode is another nice addition that will get the job done without harming your hardware. And finally, AMD has now introduced FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) to its GPUs new and old.

This is a rebuttal to NVIDIA’s DLSS, and for the most part it works quite well despite using a different approach. The list of compatible games is growing, but it will take some time to catch up to NVIDIA.

Editor’s recommendations

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