Upgrade from RTX3090FE to RTX4090FE

I have just upgraded my graphics, everything else equal:

-“Old card”: bought two years ago, Nvidia RTX 3090FE. worked well with MSFS, but:

  1. Can be very lound under load because of fans rpm
  2. Memory temp can go very, very high, i.e. 106 °C. This is documented on the web. There is a hardware workaround but didn’t take time for this.
  3. Card power draw when idling, i.e. just windopws desktop: never below 32W
  4. Settings to ultra gave me around 40 fps at KJFK
  5. Very expensive

-New card: Nvidia RTX 4090FE

  1. Very quite, even under substantial load, like 320 W
  2. Temperatures are really low. After stressing the graphics system (MSFS, XP12), memory temp never exceeded 72°C
  3. When idle, the power consumption of the card is…much lower than the 3090FE one. I get 18 W !
  4. The FPS and the image quality. My god ! the difference is huge: TAA + Ultra + DX11 + no DLSS= 65 FPS at KJFK (Fenix A320). Ultra + DX12 + TAA (no DLSS2) + DLSS3 (FG), FPS around 150-180. What is really nice is that in this last case everything is smooth and the image quality is just perfect. There is absolutely no stuttering. Fabulous ! The card cunsumption is between 110 W and 320W in this case and very quite.
    5- Be careful with the size of the card. The card by itself is huge but not really more when compared to the RTX3090FE. The problem is that one needs to take into account the increase of the needed depth required my the cable design. One need something like 4 cms. Be careful, this is undocumented.
    6-Very expensive too but you know where the money is, much more then in the previous case.

My CPU is an Intel 13900K, 64 GB DDR5 RAM, graphics driver used is the same, i.e. Nvidia last version to date.

Regards

1 Like

It’s always good to hear how well the 4090 is doing…
I’m about to buy mine from Origin PC with almost the same setup.
13900K / 4090 / 32gb DDR5…

I just got all the money saved up, now I’ll wait for CES to see if the KS version is going to be released in January.

Hope you enjoy your pc!

There’s no need to wait if you don’t mind slightly tweaking the 13900K. The 13900K can easily be pushed to 6.0 Ghz turbo boost with a slight increase in the voltage-frequency curve. Even >6.2 Ghz is possible if you win the silicon lottery, but this came with some heavy voltage requirements on my sample that I wasn’t comfortable running with.

The only real benefit of the 13900KS is better binning over the 13900K, which could theoretically increase your overclocking potential. Although, I would argue the 13900K is already pushed to near max performance.