Why RTX 3090 is not worth buying in August 2022

The Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090 was launched in 2020 as the company's first Big Ferocious GPU (BFGPU). It was the flagship entry in the RTX 30 series lineup until recently when RTX 3090 Ti replaced it.

The 3090 is a premium card. Initially, it was priced heftily at $1,499. However, current market prices have brought the card down to $1,200. This makes it much cheaper than its predecessor, the Titan RTX.

The Geforce RTX 3090 is a card meant for 3D artists, AI and ML (machine learning) scientists, and game developers. However, many users are buying it for gaming purposes.

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Is the RTX 3090 a good option for gaming?

The RTX 3090 is in Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's hand (Image via Nvidia)

The Nvidia RTX 3090 is one of the most powerful rendering machines available on the market today. It nails any gaming workload without any hiccups at a 4K resolution. However, competition and pricing are factors to consider while recommending this GPU.

GPU Name	GA102
CUDA Core Count	10,496
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs)	328
Render Output Units (ROPs)	112
Ray Tracing (RT) Core Count	82
Tensor Core Count	328
Video Memory Size	24 GB
Video Memory Type	GDDR6X
Video Memory Bus Width	384 bit
Base Clock Speed	1395 MHz
Boost Clock Speed	1695 MHz
Memory Clock Speed	1219 MHz
MSRP	US$ 1499

On paper, the 3090 is a solid card. It packs some of the most ridiculous specs seen in video cards to date.

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The competition

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (Image via AMD)

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is the main competitor to the 3090. The card was launched as part of the Big Navi lineup in 2020. However, it is significantly cheaper at just $999.

The Radeon RX 6000 series has a few key disadvantages when compared to the Ampere lineup.

Ray tracing implementations in AMD GPUs are not as polished as in Nvidia GPUs. Thus, in games with heavy ray tracing implementation, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Far Cry 6, the RX 6900 XT falls behind the 3090.

However, games that rely on pure raster performance, like Battlefield V and Forza Horizon 5, see the RX 6900 XT pull closer to 3090.

Despite these disadvantages, the RX 6900 XT is one of the most powerful video cards out there. It has a much stronger value proposition than the 3090. Gamers will face no problems with this card at any resolution.

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Factors to consider

Both Nvidia and AMD are expected to launch the RTX 40 series and RX 7000 series of GPUs, respectively, later this year. According to rumors, the new GPUs will outperform the 30 series and the RX 6000 series by a huge margin while costing less. Thus, buying an expensive and power-hungry 3090 a couple of months before its launch is not a good decision.

The ASRock OC Formula AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT (Image via ASRock)

AMD has lowered the price of their latest entry, the RX 6950 XT. Users can easily find this card for $999 these days. This improved card draws less power and beats 3090 by a solid margin in almost every title while costing less than it.

Thus, if users are keen on snagging one of the best video cards available today, the Radeon RX 6950 XT is the way to go.

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Disclaimer: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.