NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936.2 GB/s | 1008 GB/s |
| Shaders | 10496 | 16384 |
| Boost Clock | 1695 MHz | 2520 MHz |
| TDP | 350W | 450W |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ada Lovelace |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 5,117 | 9,236 |
| Best Price | $1,499 | $1,599 |
| Value Score | 18/100 | 27/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090: Which Should You Buy?
This is not a close race. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers 146.1 fps at 1440p ultra to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090's 106 fps, a 38% gap. Only pick the slower card if it is dramatically cheaper or you need it for a lower resolution.
You pay a 7% premium for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ($1,599 against $1,499) to get 38% more frames. The extra performance more than covers the extra cost.
Two things beyond raw speed: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 draws 100W less (350W versus 450W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is 2 years newer (2022 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.