NVIDIA's all-new flagship RTX 3090 Ti GPU is here, but you won't be able to buy one anyway

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By Rich Edmonds
published

There's a new king of NVIDIA RTX 30 cards in town and it's a monster.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (Image credit: NVIDIA)

What you need to know

  • NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GPU, built on the Ampere architecture.
  • The RTX 3090 Ti has 10,752 CUDA cores, as well as 78 RT-TFLOPs, 40 Shader-TFLOPs, and 320 Tensor-TFLOPs of power.
  • Availability is TBD due to supply issues that still plague the industry. Prices will commence at $1,999.

NVIDIA today announced the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, a new flagship graphics card to take on the most demanding games and creator software. This latest GPU from the company boasts some impressive specifications, thanks to the Ampere architecture. We're talking 10,752 CUDA cores, as well as 78 RT-TFLOPs, 40 Shader-TFLOPs, and 320 Tensor-TFLOPs of power.

If that wasn't enough, there's also a whopping 24GB of GDDR6X memory, capable of hitting 21Gb/s. So what does all this translate to in real-world usage? NVIDIA is positioning the RTX 3090 Ti as a GPU that's designed with creative and research work in mind. AI and data science development or processing huge data chunks is where this GPU really comes alive.

For gamers, it's slightly less appealing. Compared to the already excellent RTX 3090, NVIDIA is looking at about a 9% improvement in various recorded games. The RTX 3090 Ti is, however, 52% faster than the TITAN RTX and 64% faster than the older RTX 2080 Ti. The NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti (or even the RTX 3090) would be a better buy for gaming alone.

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COLORFUL RTX 3090 Ti Vulcan

Still, if you desire the absolute best graphics card NVIDIA has to offer, the RTX 3090 Ti is the only GPU worth considering. NVIDIA boasts the RTX 3090 Ti is upwards of 100% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti in specific applications, which is largely helped by the beefy 24GB of RAM. Then there's the 8K HDR gaming capability with AV1 codec support.

Prices for the RTX 3090 Ti are expected to start at $1,999. NVIDIA is no stranger to announcing new graphics cards amid supply chains that are unable to keep up with demand, so we expect similar issues to plague the RTX 3090 Ti as we progress through 2022.

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.