NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition Review & Benchmarks: Gaming, Power, & Thermals

Our review of the NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card tests the new GPU vs. the RTX 3090 Ti, RX 6950 XT, RTX 3090, RTX 2080 Ti, and more. This $1600 MSRP video card has a release date of October 12, 2022, and has mostly been in rumors for power consumption, transient spikes and power supply choice, and thermals. Now, we have all those benchmarks and gaming (rasterization) and ray tracing GPU testing, including DLSS & FSR benchmarks with ray tracing. The RTX 4090 is a complicated card to test given its feature set -- especially because DLSS3 doesn’t really have much of an existence yet.



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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE GPU Review
01:18 - Too Much Data & Price Reminders
01:40 - Desperate to Dump Inventory
03:40 - Thermal Testing Methods on RTX 4090
06:09 - Temperature Results for RTX 4090 Founders Edition (Port Royal)
07:24 - Fan Response to Thermals
07:55 - Surprisingly Good Thermal Results
09:50 - A Big Change for the Market
10:15 - The GPU Transient Spike Problem
12:23 - Surprising Power Behavior Results on RTX 4090
14:54 - You Need to Know This About the Cable
16:23 - RTX 4090 Power Consumption vs. RTX 3090 Ti
17:05 - Gaming Benchmarks: Total Warhammer 3 4K, 1440p, 1080p
18:36 - F1 2022 GPU Benchmarks (RTX 4090 vs. RTX 3090 Ti, 2080 Ti, etc.)
20:30 - Tomb Raider 4K Benchmarks
21:05 - Important Reminder
21:45 - Tomb Raider in 1440p, 4K
22:18 - Rainbow Six Siege Best Video Cards 2022
23:30 - Horizon Zero Dawn GPU Benchmarks
24:19 - Final Fantasy 4K & 1440p GPU Benchmarks
25:08 - GTA V GPU Benchmarks on RTX 4090 (lol)
25:45 - DLSS, FSR, DLSS3, Ray Tracing Challenges
26:30 - Control Ray Tracing Benchmarks
27:57 - Ray Tracing F1 2022 Benchmarks
29:18 - Cyberpunk 2077 Ray Tracing RTX 4090 Benchmarks
30:32 - Ray Tracing Tomb Raider Tests
30:48 - Conclusion

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Host, Writing, Testing & Lead: Steve Burke
Testing, Research: Patrick Lathan
Video Editing, Testing: Mike Gaglione
Video Production: Andrew Coleman
Power Testing: Patrick Stone

[GamersNexus]

This month has been crazy non-stop testing and reviews, and we're still not done yet! Plus, more coming in November.

[BeardBig]

Dude I love how Steve shoves the gamer chair out of the way to deploy the trusty metal folding chair. 5:35

[MrCHUPN]

Love love love the human element here--showing us during the review how your process works, and showing some of the other folks behind the scenes. Awesome way to have taken the "show don't tell" feedback from fans to heart!

[ethzero]

Liking that open-plan, seemingly lighter view of the studio.

[awright]

I love so many things about this video, 1. that you looked at the thermals, 2. that you investigated the transients, and 3. the "important reminder" that you don't necessarily need this. I appreciate the benchmarks as well, but everyone has benchmarks. Thanks for all you guys do! See you in the next one.

[hifam]

This channel has such a great production. I'm glad they moved into this new space.

[shiishani]

Guys, on behalf of many gamers out there, I just wanna say thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to make all these tests. They are really helpful & I rarely buy core hardware components without first checking you reviews.

[CorigamiC]

This is an IMPRESSIVE benchmarking setup. Wow. Thank you for all you do, Gamers Nexus!

[soaddude]

@13:40

"we only ran this test for 8 hours for transients...." One of the most GN things I've ever heard.

Thanks for the extremely detailed review!!

[siegful]

The best review of the 4090 I've seen today by far zero noise just useful info, once again you have raise the bar higher, congrats!!

[DFreyser]

I’m really happy that pure rasterization is such a big improvement but I still don’t think we should just accept 1600 for a gpu and 900 for a 4070

I love the transparency and amount of detail and care that these guys put into their videos. Amazing standards for current times.

[KushiKush]

This is literally The Ultimate Nvidia 4090 Guide. Such high quality testing. Other YouTubers should learn from this.

[Karn]

It is the little things in GN videos that make them among the best. Steve pushing the gaming chair away and sitting in the folding metal chair was great. Such a brutal take down of a chair.

My favourite thing about this is how Steve and the team are so proud of their methodology :)

[turi-ffic]

The walk around was sick. Loved to see the studio and on going processes

[rfariavitor]

The amount of work put into the reviews here is something out of the ordinary. Keep it up, guys!

[bigmack]

I love your reviews. You don't drink the marketing kool-aid. You don't go into crazy hyperbole. Just the data and evaluation of the product. Thanks.

[HuddyTheBuddy]

Love the effort you guys put into your reviews, probably the most detailed 4090 review out there!
Also love the shade thrown at the “gaming chair” 5:35

[batou]

Glad you guys are putting so much attention to detail in the makeup of the thermals. I was pretty pissed when i learned that my 3090 mem was hitting 104c and it wasn't shown on the nvidia overlay. Luckily replacing the pads dropped temps to 80c, but after this lesson i vowed to not make any more gpu purchases without a better understanding of the power and thermals. Consumers shouldn't have to jump through hoops to fix poor engineering (or $ corner cutting) on products especially expensive premium products.