Well, the rumors were correct, Nvidia has announced the super-high-end GeForce RTX 3090 Ti at CES 2022.
As a super-charged upgrade to Nvidia's flagship RTX 3090, the RTX 3090 Ti is now the most powerful gaming graphics card Nvidia has ever made. The question is - who's going to buy it?
For a start, unless you're aiming to play the very latest games at 8K resolution, then the RTX 3090 Ti will likely be overkill. No games currently properly stress the RTX 3090, and the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3080 are plenty capable.
So, as Nvidia's most powerful - and likely most expensive - gaming GPU, the RTX 3090 Ti will be for people who are happy to pay for performance they won't need for a while. That's even if you can find one in stock - GPUs are still really hard to get hold of.
Still, we always love seeing new GPUs, especially ones that really push the envelope, and the RTX 3090 Ti looks set to do just that. It's a" monster GPU" according to Nvidia's Jeff Fisher.
Sadly, we didn't get much information about the RTX 3090 Ti, except that it has 24GB of GDDR6X memory with 21GB/s bandwidth, which is the same amount of memory as the RTX 3090, but much faster bandwidth. According to Fisher, it's "the fastest ever."
He also threw out some other stats, including that the RTX 3090 Ti will come with 40 shader teraflops, 78 RT teraflops and 320 tensor teraflops, but that doesn't mean a whole lot until we actually PLAY with this thing.
According to Fisher, we'll have to "tune in later this month for more details," so hopefully we'll find out what kind of price tag this thing has.
Analysis: Who is this for?
The RTX 3090 was already a niche product due to its power and price tag, so who is the RTX 3090 Ti aimed at? Gamers playing at 4K or below will likely be better off buying a cheaper GPU.
However, if you're looking for a GPU for gaming on, and doing some serious content creation, then the RTX 3090 Ti could be for you. It'll no doubt be expensive, but still cheaper than Nvidia's professional GPUs, and it doesn't look like we'll get a proper follow-up to the last-gen RTX Titan.
As we've found with the RTX 3090, 8K gaming is now a possibility, though with some compromises. If the RTX 3090 Ti can do 8K even better without those compromises - such as toning down graphical effects - then this is going to be a GPU for enthusiasts that want a future-proof GPU for 8K gaming.
Also, with the release of the RTX 3080 Ti, Nvidia narrowed the gap between its more affordable gaming GPUs and the RTX 3090, with some people arguing that the RTX 3080 Ti makes the RTX 3090 redundant for 4K and below gaming. The RTX 3090 Ti, then, widens that gap once again. Will it be of use to most gamers? No. But we still can't wait to test it out.
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