The RTX 4090 graphics card from Nvidia offers significant upgrades over the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti models, but is it really worth it? To find out, I compared all three GPUs in 15 games at resolutions of 4K, 1440p, and 1080p.
Specifications
| RTX 3090 | RTX 3090 TI | RTX 4090 | |
| GPU | GA102 – 8NM | GA102 – 8NM | AD102 – 4NM |
| CUDA/TENSOR/RT | 10496/82/328 | 10752/84/336 | 16384/128/512 |
| BOOST CLOCK | 1700MHZ | 1860MHZ | 2520MHZ |
| TGP | 350W | 450W | 450W |
| MEMORY | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X |
| MEMORY SPEED | 19.5 GBPS | 21 GBPS | 21 GBPS |
| MEMORY INTERFACE | 384-BIT | 384-BIT | 384-BIT |
| MEMORY BANDWIDTH | 936 GB/S | 1008 GB/S | 1008 GB/S |
| RELEASE DATE | SEP 2020 | JAN 2022 | OCT 2022 |
| LAUNCH PRICE | $1500 | $2000 | $1600 |
As you can see spec sheet, all three GPUs have the same 24GB of GDDR6X Memory with a 384-Bit Bus. 3090 Ti and 4090 have the same memory speed, but the 3090 has a lower memory speed. The new 4090 has 52% more CUDA cores than the 3090 Ti and a much higher boost clock. The 3090 Ti and 4090 have a 450-watt TGP, but the 4090 is based on TSMC 4nm compared to the older Samsung 8nm process used with Ampere.
Price
Recently there was cut down in prices of GPUs, and at the time of writing, the RTX 3090 Ti is starting from $1200 and RTX 3090 from $950, and obviously price will change overtime, so you can just click on the above links to get latest price.
And if we see the launch price of all three GPUs, then RTX 4090 is priced between RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti. So, should you spend $400 more for RTX 4090 over the RTX 3090 Ti?
Performance
Now I will show you the Benchmarks of all the games I have tested, but before that, take a look at my System Specifications:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus X670E Master
- RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000MHz
Starting with Cyberpunk 2077, there weren’t many differences at 1080p but, the 4090 was only 10.6% faster than the 3090 Ti here. At 4K, where the GPUs are actually used, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 Ti by 44% and the 3090 by 50%.
Apex Legends has a 300 FPS frame cap, even if you set the frame limit to 0. At 1080p and 1440p, the 4090 was hitting the frame limit with max settings. The average frame rate of the 4090 was 56% higher at 4K than the 3090 Ti, and also outperformed the 3090 by 58%.
On to Call of Duty: Warzone, where the 4090 provides us with an average frame rate that is 32% higher than the 3090 at 1080p and 29% higher than the 3090 Ti.
The Assassin’s Creed Valhalla results got me a little excited, even you can also see that how RTX 4090 is leading.
In my testing of Counter-Strike: GO, I discovered that a GPU difference makes very little difference at resolutions of 1080p and 1440p, and barely any difference at 4K.
Even at the lower 1080p resolution, Dying Light 2 experienced a significant improvement with the 4090. At 1080p, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 Ti by 40%. At 1440p and 4K, the 4090 was then 42% and 41% ahead, respectively.
Moving on to Far Cry 6, there weren’t many differences between the 1080p and 1440p results. With the 4090 placing 34% ahead of the 3090 Ti and 39% ahead of the 3090, the differences were even marginal at 4K. Those are still respectable results, but they’re not as impressive.
At all three resolutions, the differences between the 3090 and 3090 Ti in Forza Horizon 5 appear to be very slight. Furthermore, RTX 4090 won at each of the three resolutions with big lead.
If you don’t intend to play Halo Infinite at higher resolutions, it’s not really worth the extra money since there weren’t many differences at 1080p. The gap widens at 1440p, where the 4090 is 22% faster than the 3090 Ti and 27% faster than the 3090, but at 4K, the 4090 is 48% faster than the 3090 Ti and 56% faster than the 3090, a significantly larger gap.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is CPU heavy game. At 1080p and 1440p resolutions, the three GPUs are virtually identical. At 4K, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 Ti by 26% and the 3090 by 35%.
Red Dead Redemption 2 also had basically no difference at 1080p. However, to be fair, I’m testing with the high setting preset rather than the highest ultra-settings, so it’s possible that we’d see a bigger difference there as it might make us a little more GPU bound.
Spider-Man Remastered is more of a CPU-intensive game, so at the lower 1080p resolution, all three GPUs were performing fairly similarly. The gaps were barely noticeable at 1440p, and at 4K, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 and 3090 Ti by 46% and 39%, respectively.
When The Witcher 3 was tested using the highest ultra-setting preset, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 Ti and the 3090 by 41% and 48%, respectively, at 4K.
With the 4090 at 1080p, Total War Warhammer III also saw some significant improvements. At 1080p, the 4090 outperformed the 3090 by 34% and the 3090 Ti by 29%. The 4090 outperformed the 3090 and the 3090 Ti at 4K resolution by 52% and 44%, respectively.
The difference between Watch Dogs: Legion at 1080p and 1440p was even more minimal. The 4090 outperformed the 3090 and 3090 Ti at 4K by 54% and 45%, respectively.
Which GPU You Should Buy?
While writing this article, the 4090 is about 45% more expensive than the 3090 Ti, but it also performs almost 50% better at 4K, so if you can afford it, get the RTX 4090. However, if you can’t afford it, you might want to hold off until the RTX 4080 is released.
