Rumor Suggests NVIDIA’s Beastly GeForce RTX 4090 Ti Lovelace GPU Could Demand Over 800W
When it comes to graphics card leaks and rumors, there are a number of fairly-reliable sources. Two of the most prolific producers of recent rumors have been Twitter users @kopite7kimi and @Greymon55. Regular HotHardware readers are sure to be familiar with these names; we've reported on their rumors many times.
Regarding NVIDIA's next-generation GPU family based on its Ada Lovelace architecture, we've already heard quite a bit. Back in November of last year, Greymon55 asked if hardware enthusiasts were ready for double the performance at double the power consumption. That seemed almost preposterous at the time, but later leaks have continued to corroborate that concept.
Just three weeks ago we heard tell that the top-end Ada Lovelace parts could be far and away the thirstiest GPUs ever made. Kopite7kimi remarked that he had heard a range from 450 Watts to 800 Watts for the top-end RTX 4000-series GPUs. At that time, Greymon55 made similar remarks, but both leakers were careful to note that they weren't prepared to confirm any of those specifications.
Now, both leakers are bringing those ideas back around with slightly more certainty. For his part, Kopite7kimi says that he's been told a Total Graphics Power (TGP) of 600W has been confirmed for the hypothetical "xx90"-series part. That would max out the power draw of a PCIe 5.0 power connector, also known as the ATX 3.0 12VHPWR connector.
"xx90" isn't necessarily the top-end part of NVIDIA's lineup, though. That honor could theoretically go to an "xx90 Ti" card, and Greymon55 posits that if the RTX 4080 has a 450W TGP and the RTX 4090 has a 600W TGP, then a supposed RTX 4090 Ti could have an "800W+" TGP. That's really "eight hundred watts or more," yeah.
That's to say nothing of the cooling required for even a 450-Watt graphics card, much less 600 W or even 800 W. In the replies to his tweet, kopite7kimi replies to a cheeky query by proposing the idea of a four-slot air cooler. We've seen such a thing on the leaked GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, and AORUS also sells its GeForce RTX 3090 XTREME 24G model with a four-slot cooler, but requiring such a thing on the reference card is as-yet unheard-of.
