What is the RTX 4090's power consumption? Video games, benchmarks, and more tested

The RTX 4090 is the most powerful consumer graphics card available on the market. The GPU is a huge step up from its last-gen equivalent, the 3090 Ti. It is a more adept pixel pusher while packing a more power-efficient design.

However, a 450 W video card can still not be considered particularly efficient. Nvidia recommends at least an 850 W PSU with the GPU. Gamers are better off with a 1000 W.

The price of a PSU stacks up quite significantly as one goes up the wattage ladder. Thus, it is necessary to study the power draw characteristics of the GPU before settling on a new power supply wattage.

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Test results and more details about the RTX 4090's power consumption

Nvidia has made significant improvements to its power draw characteristics with the Ada Lovelace-based RTX 40 series lineup. Power spikes are much less common, and the GPU can intelligently adjust its power draw to deliver optimum performance.

In addition, the entire RTX 40 series lineup used Gen 5 power connectors compatible with ATX 3.0 power supplies. These PSUs pack a four-pin sensor that detects the required power draw of the components and sets the power delivery accordingly.

Thus, the results we obtained in the following tests are not surprising.

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Power draw consumption characteristics in stress tests

The stress-testing software is designed to utilize 100% of the underlying hardware. The RTX 4090 is brought down to its knees in this case. The test gives us a worst-case scenario and shows what could be the highest power draw with the Founder's Edition variant.

For our test, we used the FurMark stress test software. It is among the heaviest stress tests available. The video card's power consumption shot up to 448 W and maintained a steady graph afterward.

No abrupt power spikes were noticed. The power draw characteristics graph is attached below.

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RTX 4090 power draw characteristics in video games

Video games represent a more realistic load scenario that a video card will be subject to in day-to-day usage. Stress tests are generally not how graphics cards are utilized in most 3D programs like creative software and games.

To test this, we ran Fortnite Chapter 4 in the highest settings with ray tracing and no temporal upscaling in different resolutions, including 1440p and 4K. This gave us a clear look at how the power draw varies with the resolution.

The above graph shows the power draw characteristics of the RTX 4090 while running Fortnite at 1440p. The GPU had a maximum power draw of 252.6 W, much less than its rated TDP of 450 W.

In fact, across multiple video games in 1440p, the card does not draw over 1440p. This goes on to prove that the GPU can adjust the power draw according to the load, unlike the last-gen video cards, which would draw close to its rated TDP even in video games.

While running Fortnite at 4K, the power draw goes up to 290 W. This is because of the added intensity of the higher resolution.

The worst-case scenario has so far been noticed in Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K. The RTX 4090 draws around 330W in a higher resolution.

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Conclusion

The RTX 4090 peaks at around 330 W power supply while running video games. Thus, according to some rough estimates, a 600 W PSU should be more than enough.

However, this does not take into account the occasional power spikes of both the CPU and GPU. Although rare, the RTX 4090 can jump up to 1000 W power demand at any point of usage. Thus, it is safe to get at least an 850 W PSU.

However, gamers can use at least a 600 W PSU for a couple of days when their power supply has gone for an RMA or is unavailable for a short period of time. It is a better idea not to play heavy video games quite often during this time.