GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition is NVIDIAs first graphics card with 16-pin power connector – VideoCardz.com

NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti is a start of new era of high-power GPUs

The RTX 3090 Ti is a new 450W graphics card based on Ampere architecture.

There is a Founder’s Edition of the RTX 3090 Ti. The card presented at CES 2022 will become available for sale. We have some new photos of this new semi-custom design by NVIDIA, that will become available though select retail partners as well as NVIDIA’s own official webstore.

The card retains the 3-slot configuration and the size of the original RTX 3090 Founders SKU. The RTX 3090 Ti is the new flagship Ampere SKU, featuring GA102-350 GPU and 21 Gbps GDDR6 memory.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, Source: VideoCardz

This model will also be the first NVIDIA card ever to feature a PCIe Gen5 16-pin power connector. This connector replaces NVIDIA’s 12-pin Molex MicroFit 3.0 plug that could feed up to 300W of power (through a dual 8-pin adapter). It was first seen on RTX 30 series in 2020, but has never been widely used by any custom design. The 12-pin connector remained exclusive to NVIDIA Founders Edition and at least 2 custom models based on NVIDIA reference PCB. In this regard, the 16-pin connector should become more popular, as we have already seen custom RTX 3090 Ti cards featuring this connector.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, Source: VideoCardz

According to some initial reports, the card just 5% to 10% faster than GeForce RTX 3090 at 4K resolution. There are memory-intenstive games that will see higher gains from the 21 Gbps GDDR6X upgrade, but overall the reviewers that we spoke with are not impressed with its performance.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, Source: VideoCardz

Some custom designs, that will be unveiled on March 29, will have a TDP even higher than 450W. For instance, the ASUS ROG STRIX OC will ship with 480W TDP and still be adjustable up to 516W. Here, it is worth reminding that the maximum power that can be fed through the new PCIe Gen5 power connector and the PCIe slot itself is 525W.

As for the price, there are still some conflicting reports. The rumors about pricing that surfaced in the last 24 hours have mentioned $1,499, $1,999 or even 2,399 USD MSRP (that includes Founders Edition).

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 High-End SKU Specifications
VideoCardzRTX 3090 TiRTX 3090RTX 3080 TiRTX 3080 (10GB)
Picture
GPUGA102-350GA102-300GA102-225GA102-200
GPU Clusters
CUDAs
RT Cores
Tensors/TMUs
Base Clock
Boost Clock
Memory
Bus
Memory Clock
Bandwidth
TDP
MSRPTBC
Release DateMarch 29, 2022September 24th, 2020June 3rd, 2021September 17th, 2020