ROG Strix LC and TUF OG

Asus has expanded the corporate’s GeForce RTX 40-series product portfolio with two new RTX 4090 graphics playing cards. The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OC, which can be found in common and OC editions, have arrived to compete within the high-end phase. What makes these playing cards notable, in flip, is their decreased measurement: the brand new playing cards are bodily smaller than Asus’ early RTX 4090 choices, in addition to most of the opponents available on the market.

The GeForce RTX 4090 is a 450W gaming graphics card, with giant coolers to match. Even NVIDIA’s hard-to-get GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Version is a triple-slot graphics card, and air-cooled AIB playing cards are typically bigger nonetheless. So for the size-conscious gamer, this leaves liquid cooled playing cards, which brings us to Asus’s new ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090. The closed-loop card strikes numerous its bulk off to an connected 240 mm radiator block, bringing the cardboard itself all the way down to 2.6-slots vast.

The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090’s hybrid cooling system packs a chilly plate that cools the massive AD102 GPU and neighboring GDDR6X reminiscence chips. The warmth is transferred to the 240 mm radiator via 560 mm tubing, so there will not be a difficulty with giant instances. A low-profile heatsink with a blower-style cooling fan retains the opposite energy supply parts cool. In the meantime the radiator itself is provided with a pair of 120 mm ARGB cooling followers are current to dissipate the warmth as soon as it will get there.

Asus’s different new RTX 4090 card, the air-cooled TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG, is a singular case of its personal. Technically, it is a new SKU; nonetheless, the graphics card reuses the TUF Gaming cooler from the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

That is notable as a result of the TUF cooler used on the 3090 Ti was an excellent bit smaller than Asus’s first RTX 4090 cooler. The web result’s that these adjustments deliver the brand new OG card’s width from 3.65-slots (and arguably, vast sufficient that it’s essential depart a 4th slot open for air movement) down to three.2 slots – simply sufficient room for correct airflow if the neighboring 4th sot is occupied. Altogether, the OG mannequin is smaller in each dimension, shaving off 6% of its top, 7% of its size, and 13% of its width. Asus would not record the burden of its graphics playing cards, so we can’t touch upon whether or not the brand new OG model has misplaced weight.

By most accounts, Asus’s present RTX 4090 cooler is extremely efficient – it is simply additionally actually massive. So providing a separate SKU with a smaller cooler makes a great deal of sense, particularly given how well-liked NVIDIA’s true triple-slot Founders Version card has been. The smaller TUF cooler is rated for a similar 450W TDP because the bigger TUF 4090 cooler, however, as at all times, there could also be efficiency/acoustic tradeoffs concerned.

There’s one different change that Asus would not promote with the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG. The renders on the product web page present the graphics card with an extended PCB. One of many benefits of the extra compact PCB on the earlier mannequin was that it permitted Asus (and NVIDIA) to vent warmth out of the again aspect of the cardboard, in addition to to optimize the hint layouts and element placement. In the meantime, with the longer PCB, Asus relocated the 16-pin energy connector. As a substitute of being positioned within the center, the ability connector is on the farther proper aspect.

Between the 2 new playing cards, the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 finally ends up with the sting in clockspeeds, flaunting enhance clock speeds as much as 2,640 MHz when in its highest efficiency mode. In the meantime, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG collection have the identical clock speeds because the vanilla fashions, with a rated enhance clock of 2520 MHz inventory and 2595 MHz when the OC card is in its highest mode. As well as, the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG produce other attributes in frequent, together with utilizing a single 16-pin energy connector and a show output structure consisting of two HDMI 2.1a ports and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Asus hasn’t revealed the pricing or availability of the brand new graphics playing cards. For reference, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 and OC Version retail for $1,599 and $1,799, respectively. The OG counterparts probably have comparable worth tags. In the meantime, we would anticipate the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 to hold a extra appreciable premium because of the AIO liquid cooling design.