Why the RTX 3090 is not worth buying this holiday season

The RTX 3090 is the first big ferocious GPU (BFGPU) Nvidia ever made. This massive brick of a graphics card can deliver unmatched performance, and was marketed as the world's first 8K-capable GPU.

Although the 3090's 8K performance metrics are questionable, the card is impeccable at UHD, the current industry standard. At this resolution, it can deliver playable framerates at the highest settings in almost every video game out there.

Thus, it is no wonder that gamers are still willing to bet their hard-earned dollar on the RTX 3090. It has significantly dropped in price following the crypto market crash. Thus, it might be the first choice of several people.

However, they should consider a few more factors, including the offerings from the competition and the upcoming graphics cards from both Nvidia and AMD, before finalizing the 3090 as their next GPU.

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The RTX 3090 is a great performer, but looks a bit shabby for its price

There is no denying the fact that the 3090 is an impeccable pixel-pusher.

This card is based on the Ampere flagship GA102 graphics processor that packs 10,496 CUDA cores, 328 Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), 112 Render Output Units (ROPs), 82 ray tracing (RT) cores, and 24 GB of GDDR6X memory that is based on a wide 384-bit bus. The memory has an output bandwidth of 936.2 GB/s.

The 3090 can achieve a steady 60 FPS in most video games at 4K. Thus, gamers who pick up this card for gaming will not be disappointed with the number of pixels it can push out per second.

Upon launch, the 3090 was priced at $1,499. However, it can currently be picked up for around $1,050 to $1,100.

This pricing is what turns off the value proposition of the card. The RTX 3080 Ti, a cheaper card, can hit up to 99% of the performance numbers of the 3090. Ever since it launched back in the summer of 2021, it has made the latter look like a bad investment.

Also, now that the 3080 Ti's prices are falling, it is starting to look like a sensible option for those who do not want to spend a premium for the latest RTX 4080 and the 4090.

The RX 6000 flagship, the Radeon RX 6950 XT, can perform as well as the RTX 3090 in most video games. Even the older RX 6900 XT plays a catch-up game with Nvidia's offering. However, it is much cheaper after AMD slashed prices on the RX 6000 series.

In addition, Team Red is also giving away two games for free, namely The Callisto Protocol and Dead Island 2, with every RX 6000 series GPU purchase.

However, if gamers are willing to spend over $1000 on a GPU instead of cost-cutting and opting for a slightly cheaper model, the RTX 4080 seems like a better choice.

It is $100 costlier than the RTX 3090 but is much faster. According to TechPowerUp's GPU computing power aggregates, the 4080 beats the 3090 by a solid 25% margin.

In addition, gamers will get longer driver support and access to DLSS 3, which comes with frame-generation technology. This will allow gamers to push more frames out of this GPU.

They can also choose to wait for the RX 7900 XT and the RX 7900 XTX, which will hit the market on December 14. They are projected to beat the RTX 4080 while costing $899 and $999, respectively. Thus, gamers can get more performance for less money, even when pitched against the 3090.

Thus, as it stands, for now, the RTX 3090 is a bad investment. With competitive offerings from Team Red and the much faster next-gen cards hitting the market, the BFGPU from 2020 is losing ground.