New Nvidia RTX 4090: Twice as fast as the RTX 3090 Ti - but 1,949 euros expensive

[15:46 Wed,21.September 2022 by Thomas Richter]

Nvidia has unveiled the first two models 4090 and RTX 4080 of its new graphics card generation - as usual, Nvidia starts with the top models, the other, always weaker or cheaper variants appear in the next month. Many technical specifications of the new RTX 40 series were already known via leaks, but the biggest question remained the price, because the price/performance ratio compared to the previous generation determines the attractiveness of the new GPUs. Nvidia has set this price significantly higher than the previous models, so the RTX 4090 now starts with a price of 1,949 Euros.

Nvidia RTX family

Strong graphics cards are enormously important for professional work with high-resolution video, as they accelerate numerous functions such as encoding video, rendering VFX, color correction and various AI tools, among others.

Double the speed with more cores and bigger clock

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The GPUs of the new RTX 4000 Nvidia models were manufactured by TSMC using the 5-nanometer technology, which is once again much more efficient compared to the previous model. Together with the new design, a larger L2 cache, more CUDA cores, and an even higher clock of 2.8 GHz, this leads to a big performance increase. Thus, according to Nvidia, the GeForce RTX 4090 is supposed to be up to 2x faster than a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti in 3D rendering, AI functions and video export (presumably, the acceleration is quite different from application to application, though). Encoding is accelerated on all RTX 40-series models with a new dual encoder that should cut export times nearly in half.

New Nvidia RTX 4090

Nvidia RTX 4090

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The new RTX 4090 (with AD102-300-A1 graphics chip) features 24G of GDDR6X VRAM and 16,384 ALU FP32 shader/CUDA cores at a base clock of 2,235 MHz and a maximum clock of more than 2,520 MHz and a TGP of 450 watts. According to Nvidia&s CEO, the RTX 4090 has also already been overclocked to over 3 GHz in the lab.

For comparison: the GA102-300 chip of the RTX 3090 Ti, manufactured in Samsung&s 8 nm process, also had 24 GB VRAM connected via a 384 bit memory interface (with 936 GByte/s), but only 10,496 ALUs with a maximum boost clock of 1,890 MHz at a TDP of 350 watts. Its theoretical computing power was 40 TFlops - the RTX 4090 doubles this to 82.6 teraflops.

Nvidia RTX 4080

The Nvidia RTX 4080 comes in two versions, once with 16 GB of vRAM and once with 12 GB. However, both versions differ not only in the size of the memory, but also the number of CUDA cores (9,728 vs 7,680), the boost clock (2.51 GHz vs 2.61 GHz) and consequently the TDP (320 watts vs 285 watts) and the theoetic computing power (48.8 TFlops vs 40.1 TFlops). The RTX 4080 16 GB version is said to be up to 1.5x faster than an RTX 3080 Ti.

Dual Encoder

New: Encoding in AV1

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For the first time, Nvidia&s new GPUs now support hardware encoding in the open source AV1 format using the latest version of the NVENC video encoder. This will soon support AV1 encoding in the grading, editing, compositing and audio mastering program DaVinci Resolve as well as in the live streaming program OBS Studio.

OBS Studio - in addition to its recently released HEVC and HDR support - will support AV1 encoding using Nvidia GPUs in one of its next versions to be released later this year, reducing overhead for by 35% through encoding pipeline optimization. The new version will also include updated NVIDIA broadcast effects, including noise and room echo removal and virtual background improvements. Likewise, Discord will also soon enable end-to-end live streaming with AV1 on Nvidia GPUs.Nvidia will make Video Codec SDK 12 available to developers in October, making the NVENC AV1 encoder also directly usable in Microsoft&s Media Framework, Google&s Chrome and Chromium, and FFMPEG.

With the support of AV1 by Nvidia, a unique selling point of Intel&s new ARC GPUs, which were previously the only graphics cards that could compress H.264 and H.265 as well as AV1 video via hardware, is no longer applicable.

Dual Encoder

Faster encoding with dual encoder

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Also new is the dual encoder, which should cut export times almost in half. However, this can also work in tandem and automatically split the work to double the output. It also allows GeForce Experience and OBS Studio to record content at up to 8K and 60 FPS in real time.

Blackmagic Design&s DaVinci Resolve and also the

Voukoder plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro offer support for both the new AV1 encoding and the new dual encoder using Encode presets. Dual Encoder and AV1 are expected to be available for these applications via update in October, which is when the RTX 4090 will be released. In the future, AV1 encoding and the dual encoder will also be supported in the VFX app Notch as well as the

Topaz AI tools.

AI Depth Map in DaVinci Resolve 18

Accelerated AI Tools and VFX

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AI tools that automatically perform complex elaborate tasks are becoming increasingly important for video production. One example is rotoscoping, or cropping an object via mask in a video, which is greatly simplified by the Object Select Mask AI tool in DaVinci Resolve. According to Nvidia, this function should be 70% faster than with the previous generation using the new GeForce RTX 40 GPUs.

Rotoscoping in DaVinci Resolve

Further accelerated by the new RTX 40 GPUs are also GPU effects and decoding by GPU, so that now such as ultra-high resolution RAW material can be worked with in real time in REDCINE-X PRO, DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro without the need for proxies.

Price and release date of the Nvidia RTX 4090/4080

The new Nvidia RTX 4090 will be available in Germany starting October 12 at a price of 1,949 euros - that&s not only significantly more expensive than the launch price in the U.S. of around 1,600 but also more expensive than the price of the previous model, the RTX 3090, which cost only 1,550 euros (or 1,499 in the U.S.) at launch. The RTX 4080 arrives in November and costs 1,469 euros with 16 GB VRAM and 1,099 euros with 12 GB.

The performance jump of the RTX 4090 compared to the RTX 3090 Ti is big, but so is the price jump. Thus, a

RTX 3090 Ti with 24 GB is currently available for around 1,300 Euros. After the release of the RTX 4090 and 4080, the price of the old RTX 3090 Ti will probably drop further - so those who do not need the maximum performance can save quite a bit of money by buying the previous model.

more infos at bei www.nvidia.com

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Neue Nvidia RTX 4090: Doppelt so schnell wie RTX 3090 Ti - aber 1.949 Euro teuer