Colorful Preps GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan With 3GHz Clocks: Leak

Nvidia's GA102 graphics processing unit that powers GeForce RTX 4090 was designed to hit extremely high clock speeds of well over 3 GHz. Apparently, Colorful wants to take advantage of that with its new limited edition iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan graphics card, according to renowned hardware leaker @wxnod.

Colorful is reportedly working on a GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan graphics card with an unprecedented maximum GPU frequency of up to 3088 MHz out-of-box, which is 448 MHz higher than the maximum clock speed officially supported by Asus's ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition, the fastest RTX 4090 to date. By default, the iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan will come with clocks of 2235 MHz/2520 MHz base/boost, but once its OC mode is activated, its maximum boost clock will be amplified to 3088 MHz.

To support such an extreme frequency, the iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan graphics board will feature an enhanced voltage regulating module and a custom hybrid cooling system that cools down GPU, memory, and VRM using a combination of liquid and air cooling, a similar system is used by the previous-generation Kudan product.

As it always the case with the Kudan series by Colorful, the iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan will be available in limited quantities and will be extremely hard to get. Meanwhile, with a 3GHz GPU clock, it will not only be one of the best graphics cards, but will arguably the fastest graphics board in the world. In fact, Colorful is allegedly looking to use 23 GT/s GDDR6X memory with its exclusive board, which will further boost its performance.

A 3GHz GPU frequency out-of-box is high even for Nvidia's AD102, never mind the extreme cooling system. It's also not clear what the power limits are on this card, but we've seen 2.9 GHz with manual overclocking on most of the RTX 4090 cards we've reviewed, with power draw often in the 500W range. Dual 16-pin power connectors might be required with higher voltages to maintain 3 GHz.

Naturally, this information comes from an unofficial source so please sprinkle liberally with salt. We do know that the AD102 GPU can hit 3.70 GHz with liquid nitrogen while consuming around 1000W. It's certainly plausible that it can break 3 GHz with conventional cooling, but we're very curious about real-world clocks. If 3088 MHz is the boost clock, most Nvidia cards are actually able to exceed that value by 100–200 MHz. We suspect the Kudan may struggle just to reach the boost clock, never mind exceeding it.

Based on the image posted by @wxnod, the new iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Kudan looks exactly the same as its predecessor, which is odd as Colorful's Kudan cards tend to feature exclusive looks. It's perhaps a placeholder while we wait for the final hardware to ship.