Asus RTX 3090 Ti TUF Gaming

Fully armed and operational

- JARRED WALTON

MORE THAN A YEAR and a half has now passed since Nvidia launched its Ampere GPUs, including the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080. Ampere was supposed to bring the GPU empire under control but it was plagued by shortages in the ensuing time, an unforeseen weakness in Nvidia’s plans. However, things are finally starting to improve and you might be able to find an RTX 3080 for under a grand. This is apparently unacceptable because the RTX 3090 Ti doubles that price, kicks performance per watt considerations to the curb, and goes for a no-holds-barred implementation of the GA102 processor.

The 3090 Ti, like its 3090 predecessor, packs 24GB of GDDR6X memory, but Nvidia has improved things with this update. Specifically, it’s using 16Gb modules and only needs 12 of them, so all the chips are on the same side of the PCB. That’s good news because GDDR6X temperatures have been a concern since the RTX 3090 launched, with some models, including Nvidia’s Founders Edition, hitting 110°C under strenuous workloads. The Asus 3090 Ti TUF Gaming maxed out at 100°C, even with the memory overclocked from the default 21Gbps to 22.5Gbps and running an Ethereum mining test—something we couldn’t have done with the old 3090 cards.