NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3090 Graphics Card Is An Absolute Unit – Triple-Slot Monster Pictured Inside Standard ATX Case

The first picture of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card within a standard PC case has been posted over at Chiphell Forums (via Videocardz). The picture shows the card just barely fits in a standard PC chassis which should be a slight cause of concern for users who're running smaller PC cases & plan to purchase the new monster in Founders Edition flavors.

When NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card, they showcased three different Founders Edition designs for all three of their offerings. The GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card isn't just the biggest Founders Edition graphics card in the RTX 30 series lineup but its also the largest for NVIDIA's entire FE generation of cards with the only exception being the triple-slot Titan Z but that card featured two chips while the RTX 3090 features just one GPU.

Looking at the picture, the case just barely holds the graphics card as you can see the back of the card obstructs with the hard drive bay area of the case. Since the fan at the bottom acts as an in-take that pushes air from below, this would mean that some of the intake is blocked in this case.

Now all PC cases aren't designed this way and most modern cases either don't have the drive bay area as they move the drive slots at the back of the case or they simply allow users to remove and adjust the position of the drive cage itself.

But still, just looking at the card within this PC, you can see just how much space the card takes up as it measures at an insane 31.3 cm x 13.8 cm. The card is powered by a single 12-pin connector and you would need a 12-pin adapter that lets you connect two 8 pin connectors from the power supply to power the card. The triple slot monster also comes with a hefty weight but despite users concerns of the card breaking the PCIe slot or sagging, it needs to be addressed that most modern motherboards come with extra anchor points and metal braced shielding over the primary PCIe slot so there's almost zero chance that a card, even as big as the RTX 3090, would break the slot.

For reference, I have been running an RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z, another triple-slot card with a weight of around 2 Kg in my PC without the supplied support bracket and haven't seen any visible sign of PCIe slot damage or tear. The same is the case for GPU sag, the triple slot allows the card to be held by screws more tightly and in balance but regardless of that, several triple-slot or even 4-slot custom designs for the RTX 3090 & RTX 3080 will be supplied with support brackets that should definitely provide (as the name suggests) extra support.

A few days ago, ASUS also showcased how their custom ROG STRIX RTX 3090 looks like when equipped to an ITX motherboard. It seems like the roles have been reversed and it's actually the motherboard that's attached to the graphics card and not the other way around. The ROG STRIX variant is a way bigger card than the Founders Edition with a size that exceeds more than 3 slots. With that said, the GeForce RTX 3090 seems to be a force of its own with NVIDIA claiming it to be 50% faster than the Titan RTX which is literally insane with more insane pricing of $1499 US.

The RTX 3090 features some insane specifications such as 82 SM units which results in a total of 10496 CUDA cores. In addition to the CUDA cores, the card also comes packed with next-gen RT (Ray-Tracing) cores, Tensor cores, and brand new SM or streaming multi-processor units. The card has a base clock of 1400 MHz and a boost clock of 1700 MHz with a TDP of 350W.

In terms of memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 comes packed with 24 GB of memory and that too the next-generation GDDR6X design. With Micron's latest and greatest graphics memory dies, the RTX 3080 can deliver GDDR6X memory speeds of 19.5 Gbps. That along with a bus interface of 384-bit will deliver a cumulative bandwidth of 936 Gbps.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 will be launching to consumers on the 24th of September, 2020. The reference Founders Edition variant will cost $1499 US. The NVIDIA RTX 3090 will feature a price of $1499 (MSRP) however custom models will vary depending on their design and the extra horse-power that they have to offer.

There aren't any detailed performance numbers that NVIDIA is sharing right now but from what has been showcased, the GeForce RTX 3070 is faster than an RTX 2080 Ti, the RTX 3080 is a good bit ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX 3090 is about as much as 50% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti which is very impressive for the full lineup stack. The GeForce RTX 3090 being the flagship is up to 50% faster than the NVIDIA Titan RTX which is just insane amounts of performance for this flagship BFGPU & is made for up to 8K resolution gaming.