Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace GPU generation: $1,599 for RTX 4090, $899 and up for 4080
Enlarge / Time to bust out the checkbook again, GPU lovers. The RTX 4090 is here (and it's not alone). (credit: Nvidia)
After weeks of teases, Nvidia's newest computer graphics cards, the "Ada Lovelace" generation of RTX 4000 GPUs, are here. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang debuted two new models on Tuesday: the RTX 4090, which will start at a whopping $1,599, and the RTX 4080, which will launch in two configurations.
The pricier card, slated to launch on October 12, occupies the same highest-end category as Nvidia's 2020 megaton RTX 3090 (previously designated by the company as its "Titan" product). The 4090's increase in physical size will demand three slots on your PC build of choice. The specs are indicative of a highest-end GPU: 16,384 CUDA cores (up from the 3090's 10,496 CUDA cores) and 2.52 GHz of boost clock (up from 1.695 GHz on the 3090). Despite the improvements, the card still performs within the same 450 W power envelope as the 3090. Its RAM allocation will remain at 24GB of GDDR6X memory.
This jump in performance is fueled in part by Nvidia's long-rumored jump to TSMC's "4N" process, which is a new generation of 5 nm chips that provides a massive efficiency jump from the previous Ampere generation's 8 nm process.