Yes, we are all excited about the GeForce RTX 4090. Yes, it will be available in a few weeks. Yes, it's almost guaranteed to be an absolute GPU monster, taking us to new heights of 8K gaming (at a suitably ridiculous price tag).
But there is another graphics card, not yet announced, that interests me more. Well, technically there are two: I still want to see a more wallet-friendly RTX 4070, but here I am going to talk about the potential new flagship that Nvidia could have in the works: the RTX 4090 Ti.
You see, the RTX 4090 has been confirmed to use Nvidia's "AD102" GPU chip, while both models of the RTX 4080 will use the AD103 and AD104 chips. But the AD102 chip that powers the RTX 4090 isn't the full version of the AD102; which means that you don't have access to the full set of CUDA cores that the chip is capable of using.
Now this is common practice for chip manufacturers; After all, it's cheaper to mass-produce a chip for two different GPUs than it is to mass-produce two completely different chips. But now that we know the specs of the AD102 chip, Nvidia may have unwittingly given us an idea of the power of an RTX 4090 Ti using the AD102.
Analysis: Generationally, the RTX 4090 Ti could blow its predecessor out of the water
Let's break down the numbers very quickly. The RTX 4090 will have 16 CUDA cores, while the AD384 chip has a maximum potential of 102, which is 18% more cores than the GA434 chip found inside the current generation RTX 71 Ti. There are also more Tensor cores and ray tracing, naturally.
Since the RTX 4090 has the full 24GB of VRAM used by the AD102, that means we could be seeing around a 12,5% performance boost if nothing else is changed. That seems reasonable enough to me; the RTX 3090 Ti delivered 10-15% better performance than the regular 3090 in most areas, so it would be consistent with previous generations.
The RTX 4090 uses the AD102's listed maximum boost clock of 2,52GHz, so don't expect the 4090 Ti to have any higher clock speeds, unless Nvidia has a secret AD101 chip in the works, of course. Still, a 4090 Ti with a full fat AD102 chip will undoubtedly be one of the best graphics cards ever made.
When could this potential GPU be released? I have no idea – Nvidia has played its cards closely, only giving us official reveals and release dates for the RTX 4090 and 4080 so far. Still, prices for the RTX 3000 series are falling, and these cards are likely to be even cheaper once the RTX 4000 goes on sale, so if you need an upgrade and want to get a lot of graphics cards, keep your eyes wide open.