With less than two weeks until Nvidia is expected to unveil its new Ampere based graphics cards at a GeForce Special Event, a new image leak shows the flagship RTX 3090 card in the wild for the first time. The image was leaked by Twitter user GarnetSunset, and shows the Founders Edition card next to the equivalent RTX 2080.
While images have leaked of the RTX 3080, this appears to be the first full image of the RTX 3090, revealing that Nvidia will be using the same design style across both the cards, and potentially all the RTX 30 Series Founders Edition cards. Quite literally the biggest news from the leak is the sheer size of the card, requiring a triple-slot design, and making the RTX 2080 it is pictured with look very small. GarnetSunset also stated in a later correction tweet that the price will be $1400, close to the $1499 mark rumored recently.
Triple-slot designs have been rare for some time, with most large graphics cards using two slots alongside a cooler that overhangs the third slot, taking up two and a half, or two and three-quarter slots. Although some hardware partners made triple-slot versions of the RTX 2070 Super, this appears to be the first time that Nvidia have used such a large space for its Founders Edition or reference cards. It is also unusual to see a card with a cooling fan on the underside, this may link to the mystery chip on the bottom of the card, rumored to be a separate ray tracing support chip.
The main reason triple-slot designs are so rare is the extreme size makes them much more difficult to fit in cases, making them unusable in small and medium sized setups. As the added size allows for more efficient cooling, and therefore quieter performance or running temperatures, the design tends to be reserved for high-performance variants, or for cards that need a lot of cooling. The performance credentials of the RTX 3090 certainly look to require the extra space, given the rumored 50 percent jump in performance over the current generation equivalent RTX 2080 Ti, including up to four times better ray tracing.
Now that the RTX 3090 is out in the open, the rumors that Nvidia have focused on outright performance over efficiency and size certainly appear to stack up. The card is a power hungry behemoth, clearly aimed at taking and keeping the consumer graphics performance crown. Whether the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 follow the same highly power-focused approach remains to be seen, but given AMD is soon to reveal its RDNA 2 powered Navi 2X graphics cards, it would make sense for Nvidia to aim high.
Gamers looking for the ultimate in PC graphics performance are likely to need look no further, but a big wallet, as well as a big motherboard and case appear to be minimum requirements for the RTX 3090.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 is rumored to release on September 17.