Skip to main content

Nvidia’s new flagship GPU may offer a huge 4K boost — but at a staggering cost

Nvidia’s next-gen RTX 40-series of graphics cards is drawing closer, and as we’re getting there, more benchmarks and speculation about their performance is emerging. Today, we’re getting something completely new — the full AD102 GPU in a gaming setting.

According to this new leak, the alleged Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Ti is going to be a 4K gaming beast, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Of course, there’s a catch — the card’s monstrous power requirements are becoming more and more apparent.

3090 in Control with the same settings does 72 FPS on Avg so 2.2x gain pic.twitter.com/UdK2kCEXhO

— Hassan Mujtaba (@hms1193) July 19, 2022

Today’s rumor pertains to the full AD102 GPU, which is going to be the new flagship of the RTX 40-series lineup when it launches later this year. Keep in mind that this doesn’t pertain to the alleged RTX 4090, but rather a supercharged version of that card — think something like the current-gen RTX 3090 Ti, but much better. It’s still unclear whether Nvidia will name the new GPU RTX 4090 Ti or if it will make a new Titan card, but one thing is certain — such a graphics card will feature the full AD102 GPU. The chip is rumored to come with as many as 18,432 CUDA cores, marking a 12.5% improvement over the RTX 4090.

According to Twitter leaker XpeaGPU, the full AD102 is going to be one beefy GPU with performance worthy of the best graphics cards. At a “high power draw” setting, the AD102 managed to hit 160 frames per second (fps) in Control when played at 4K resolution. This is with both ray tracing and DLSS enabled, so it’s an impressive score. As noted by Wccftech’s Hassan Mujtaba, the RTX 3090 averages around 72 fps. This implies that the full AD102 GPU might deliver twice the performance of the RTX 3090.

Fans on the Nvidia RTX 3080.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Although such a performance gain seems excessive, this claim falls in line with previous rumors that also said that the graphics card may double the performance of its predecessor. On the other hand, there’s a lot we don’t know about these gaming results, such as the exact game settings or whether the new Ada GPU comes equipped with next-gen Tensor cores. The leaker also didn’t reveal the clock speed or the TDP of the card.

Even if this kind of performance proves to be real and sustainable, there’s a big catch that we’ve talked about many times — the card’s power draw. The performance of the AD102 GPU shows that we really might be seeing power consumption as high as 800 watts, which would certainly require one of the latest power supply units (PSU) in order to run.

Take the above with a healthy dose of skepticism. There’s still a while until the rumored release date of these GPUs, and nothing is certain until Nvidia speaks up. The latest leaks suggest that Nvidia’s RTX 40-series might launch in October.

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…
Oops — Nvidia has just accidentally revealed a brand new GPU
MSI RTX 4080 Suprim X installed in a PC.

Nvidia's RTX 4070 is reportedly right around the corner, but the chipmaker is yet to release any official announcement about the new GPU. It still managed to confirm its existence in a stealthy way.

The latest addition to Nvidia's lineup of the best graphics cards appeared in a slide that shows off Nvidia Reflex. The technology is coming to Counter-Strike 2, and the RTX 4070 is most likely coming to various retailers in just a few days. Did Nvidia really intend to reveal it in such a low-key way?

Read more
Watch out — Diablo IV might break your Nvidia GPU
Screenshot from the Diablo IV trailer.

Following last weekend's Diablo IV open beta, reports came flooding in saying that the game might be breaking Nvidia graphics cards. This means various crashes and subpar performance, as well as even outright dead GPUs.

Fortunately, not all cards are affected, and there are steps you can take to protect yourself. Here's what we know.

Read more
Nvidia may be putting an end to RTX 30-series graphics cards
Three Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards.

In a surprising twist, Nvidia's RTX 30-series Founders Edition graphics cards are no longer available for sale. You can still buy cards made by Nvidia's partners, but not the official FE versions prepared by Nvidia itself.

While the company's focus has been solely on the RTX 40 series lately, the RTX 30 cards are still some of the best GPUs. Fortunately, you can still get these cards elsewhere.

Read more