Gigabyte Reveals First GeForce RTX 3090 With a Blower Design

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G (Image credit: Gigabyte)

The GeForce RTX 3090, poised to be one of the fastest and best graphics cards on the planet, will hit stores on September 24 for $1,499. Gigabyte is one of the first, if not the only, brave vendor to release a GeForce RTX 3090 with a blower-style design.

As spotted via @momomo_us, the GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G (GV-N3090TURBO-24GD) checks in with dimensions of 266.7 x 111.16 x 39.8mm. Gigabyte didn't reveal the interior of the design, but the cooling system has  a copper vapor chamber that makes direct contact with the GPU and is connected via copper heatpipes to the copper heatsink. A single 80mm double-ball bearing fan draws air from inside the case and pushes the hot air out at the rear of the case. 

Gigabyte also incorporates a metal back plate with the GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G to help strengthen the overall structure.

A blower design works great in compact systems because, due to the limited space, it's more beneficial to exhaust the hot air out of the PC case than to throw the hot air back into the case, like a non-blower design does. 

However, the biggest concern we have with the GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G is not the cooler itself, but Ampere's large appetite for power. The GeForce RTX 3090 is rated for 350W, so some will question  whether a blower design can keep the beast under control. Manufacturers could more easily get away with a blower design on the GeForce RTX 3070, which is rated for 220W, but a blower on a GeForce RTX 3090 sounds like a gamble.

The GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G wields 10,496 CUDA cores, 328 third-generation Tensor cores for AI and 82 second-generation RT cores for ray tracing activities. There is a whopping 24GB of onboard 19.5 Gbps GDDR6X memory running across a 384-bit memory interface.T he graphics card delivers a maximum theoretical memory bandwidth around 936.2 GBps.

Gigabyte hasn't revealed the clock speeds for the GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G on its product page. However, the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition clocks in at 1,395 MHz and flexes a boost clock that peaks to 1,695 MHz. Given the blower-style cooler, we don't expect Gigabyte's iteration to come with any factory overclocks.

The GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G deviates from the Founders Edition in both video outputs and PCIe power connectors. Instead of the single HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, the GeForce RTX 3090 Turbo 24G provides two of each. 

Not that it changes anything power-wise, but Gigabyte opted for two normal 8-pin PCIe power connectors rather than Nvidia's 12-pin PCIe power connector. The manufacturer conveniently placed both connectors at the rear of the graphics card.

Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • Barty1884
    Dual-slot, blower design and they've tacked on the power connector module beyond the PCB.
    That isn't going to end well.

    We hope you know what you're doing, Gigabyte

    Time will tell, but I'm extremely doubtful.
    Reply
  • King_V
    We hope you know what you're doing, Gigabyte.

    Exactly my thoughts. I really hope they've come up with some ingenious setup for this.
    Reply
  • Prisoner #6
    Why bother with 3090. Bots going to get them all anyway.
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    well , if it is cheaper , then it is a perfect choice for watercooling. no need to spend on expensive cards with extra large air cooling.

    I even encourage Gigabyte to sell cards without any cooler at all . for Watercooling , it would be at least $100 less.
    Reply
  • Barty1884
    nofanneeded said:
    well , if it is cheaper , then it is a perfect choice for watercooling. no need to spend on expensive cards with extra large air cooling.

    I even encourage Gigabyte to sell cards without any cooler at all . for Watercooling , it would be at least $100 less.

    Really depends on the design. It's interesting as Nvidia's releases are not 'reference' design.... Although I'm sure AIB partners have been given a reference design.

    Gigabyte already sell their 'Waterforce' etc that ship with a waterblock, so doubtful they'd ever go that route. Going to be more lucrative to sell PCB + Waterblock than just PCB. Interesting concept though.
    Reply
  • funkywizard
    This design is meant for servers packing one card for every 2 pcie slots, 8 or 10 cards into a 4u server.

    The pcie plug placement is the dead giveaway -- the rear of the card is where you put these power plugs on server GPUs.
    Reply