NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090: specs and benchmarks

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Summary

NVIDIA started GeForce RTX 3090 sales 24 September 2020 at a recommended price of $1,499 . This is a high-end Ampere architecture desktop card based on 8 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 24 GB of GDDR6X memory clocked at 19.5 GHz are supplied, and together with 384 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 936.2 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is triple-slot card attached via PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 313 mm. 1x 12-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 350 Watt.

It provides good gaming and benchmark performance at 69.23% of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

RTX 4090GeForce RTX4090
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General info

Some basic facts about GeForce RTX 3090: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in performance ranking19
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Value for money13.55
ArchitectureAmpere (2020−2022)
GPU code nameAmpere GA102
Market segmentDesktop
Release date24 September 2020 (3 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)$1,499
Current price$1198 (0.8x MSRP)of 168889 (A100 PCIe 80 GB)
Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Technical specs

GeForce RTX 3090's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce RTX 3090's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores10496of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Core clock speed1400 MHzof 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT)
Boost clock speed1700 MHzof 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors28,300 millionof 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology8 nmof 4 (GeForce RTX 4080)
Power consumption (TDP)350 Wattof 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate556.0of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB)

Size and compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce RTX 3090 and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

InterfacePCIe 4.0 x16
Length313 mm
Width3-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 12-pin

Memory

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce RTX 3090: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory typeGDDR6X
Maximum RAM amount24 GBof 192 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Memory bus width384 Bitof 19000 (GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB)
Memory clock speed19500 MHzof 23000 (GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER)
Memory bandwidth936.2 GB/sof 3276 (Aldebaran)
Shared memory-

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce RTX 3090. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
HDMI+

API support

APIs supported by GeForce RTX 3090, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model6.5
OpenGL4.6
OpenCL2.0
Vulkan1.2
CUDA8.5

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce RTX 3090. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

RTX 3090 26834

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

RTX 3090 121431

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

RTX 3090 61569

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

RTX 3090 47774

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

RTX 3090 231656

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 9%

RTX 3090 188222

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

Benchmark coverage: 8%

RTX 3090 763636

GeekBench 5 Vulkan

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 5%

RTX 3090 167486

GeekBench 5 CUDA

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.

Benchmark coverage: 4%

RTX 3090 238123

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 300

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 105

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 16

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 170

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 93

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 medical-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 86

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 262

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

Benchmark coverage: 3%

RTX 3090 26

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 3dsmax-05

Benchmark coverage: 2%

RTX 3090 368

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce RTX 3090 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

Full HD194
1440p133
4K91

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 207

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 138
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 113
Battlefield 5 172
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 177
Cyberpunk 2077 176
Far Cry 5 202
Far Cry New Dawn 169
Forza Horizon 4 175
Hitman 3 199
Horizon Zero Dawn 191
Red Dead Redemption 2 172
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 251
Watch Dogs: Legion 129

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 121
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 101
Battlefield 5 158
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 169
Cyberpunk 2077 151
Far Cry 5 194
Far Cry New Dawn 162
Forza Horizon 4 175
Hitman 3 196
Horizon Zero Dawn 167
Metro Exodus 176
Red Dead Redemption 2 132
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 231
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 369
Watch Dogs: Legion 116

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 92
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 90
Battlefield 5 146
Cyberpunk 2077 134
Far Cry 5 177
Far Cry New Dawn 144
Forza Horizon 4 166
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 180
Watch Dogs: Legion 105

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 149
Hitman 3 178
Horizon Zero Dawn 141
Metro Exodus 115
Red Dead Redemption 2 92
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 168

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 82
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 78
Battlefield 5 130
Cyberpunk 2077 93
Far Cry 5 171
Far Cry New Dawn 139
Forza Horizon 4 164
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 120−130
Watch Dogs: Legion 89

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 96
Hitman 3 119
Horizon Zero Dawn 89
Metro Exodus 76
Red Dead Redemption 2 64
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 97
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 152

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 65
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 56
Battlefield 5 113
Cyberpunk 2077 46
Far Cry 5 108
Far Cry New Dawn 107
Forza Horizon 4 147
Watch Dogs: Legion 59

Relative perfomance

GeForce RTX 3090's performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.


AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce RTX 3090 is Radeon RX 6900 XT, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 1 position in our ranking.

RX 6900 XTRadeon RX6900 XT
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Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce RTX 3090:

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

RX 6900 XTRadeon RX6900 XT
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RTX 3080 12 GBGeForce RTX3080 12 GB
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RTX 4070GeForce RTX4070
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RX 7900 GRERadeon RX7900 GRE
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RTX 3080 TiGeForce RTX3080 Ti
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RTX 6000 Ada GenerationRTX6000 Ada Generation
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Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with GeForce RTX 3090 according to our statistics.

User ratings: view and submit

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


1.2 78186 votes

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Questions and comments

Here you can ask a question about GeForce RTX 3090, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.