Skip to main content

This trick improves the power efficiency of Nvidia’s RTX 4090

Nvidia’s latest flagship, the RTX 4090, has high power requirements, which is not surprising given its 450-watt total board power (TBP). However, there are ways to make the GPU much more power efficient.

To put that claim to the test, an owner of an RTX 4090 decided to try out power limiting and undervolting. The results were better than expected.

Nvidia's RTX 4090 undervolting chart.
QuasarZone

Before the RTX 4090 launched in October, it was the subject of a lot of speculation when it came to its power efficiency. Some sources warned about obscenely high TBP figures, in the range of 600W to 900W. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, but the GPU is still quite power-hungry at 450W.

Even at 450W, the card requires a strong power supply and it eats up a whole lot of power. Still, it’s not as bad as expected — the RTX 4090 hardly ever utilizes all of that power. It’s currently too good for most games, even demanding AAA titles, so that helps.

However, it’s no secret that undervolting a GPU can limit power usage while maintaining similar performance. QuasarZone tried out two ways of improving the RTX 4090’s power efficiency — adjusting the power limit and undervolting. They then put the card to the test in five games, all played at max settings and at 4K resolution. The list of titles includes Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Forza Horizon 5, Lost Ark, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

RTX 4090 performance at different power levels.
QuasarZone

By default, the card ran at 347W and a clock speed of 2,726MHz. Limiting the power to 60% lowered power consumption down to 268W while maintaining a clock speed of 2,443MHz. A 70% power limit seems like a sweet spot, with 305W and 2,602MHz, which is a negligible drop compared to running at 100%.

Undervolting has proved to be better than tweaking the power limit, but it’s also trickier to do. At 323 watts, QuasarZone managed to bring up the clock speed to 2,850MHz. On the lower end of the scale, they achieved 232W combined with 2,460MHz.

Regardless of the method, RTX 4090’s power efficiency was improved without hurting the card’s performance. If you own one of Nvidia’s best GPUs, this could certainly be something worth trying, especially if you worry about being hit by the melting connector fiasco.

Editors' Recommendations

Monica J. White
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
Nvidia may launch three new Super GPUs to fight back AMD
Three RTX 4080 cards sitting on a pink background.

Nvidia may be readying three new GPUs -- the RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4070 Super. We haven't seen Super cards since Nvidia's RTX 20-series, but if this leak turns out to be true, they're coming back. Will they be worthwhile enough to rank high among the best graphics cards? It's hard to say, but they could help it compete against AMD's recent GPUs.

The information comes from hongxing2020, a frequent leaker in the GPU space. Nvidia already has a decent spread of GPUs between the RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, and the RTX 4070. However, if a refresh to the Ada lineup is reportedly on the way, we might see some notable changes, but only if Nvidia decides to shake things up and use a different chip for at least two out of those three GPUs.

Read more
Why AMD’s biggest competitor is no longer Nvidia
AMD RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT graphics cards.

Both AMD and Nvidia make some of the best graphics cards, which, naturally, puts these two companies in a position where they're always competing. It's not just any old rivalry, though. AMD is the constant underdog, and Nvidia is the market leader that always comes out on top in some way.

But is Nvidia truly the one that AMD is competing against? No, not really. In fact, the fiercest competition for AMD's RDNA 3 graphics cards comes from AMD itself. Here's why that's bad news for the GPU maker.
A skip, not a leap

Read more
AMD has another new GPU that it says can beat the RTX 4060 Ti
The Gigabyte RX 6750 GRE graphics card over a dark background.

A new RDNA 2 GPU in 2023? While it sounds unlikely, it's true. MSI has just introduced a few prebuilt gaming desktops equipped with various AMD processors and graphics cards, and one of them is the previously unreleased Radeon RX 6750 GRE, which stands for "Golden Rabbit Edition." While it may not rival some of the best GPUs, rumor has it that it'll at least beat Nvidia's RTX 4060 Ti while being just a little pricier than the RTX 4060.

Gigabyte has actually beaten MSI to the punch with the announcement, having revealed its own RX 6750 GRE graphics card first. However, while the Gigabyte GPU is set to be released on October 18, MSI already has a bunch of desktops up for grabs, although we're not seeing a DIY card that you could put into your own system. It just comes as part of MSI's prebuilts, which were first spotted by ITHome and later shared by VideoCardz.

Read more