In Pursuit of 3 GHz: Inno3D Unveils RTX 4090 with Pre-Installed Liquid Cooling

By Anton Shilov
published

Arctic and Inno3D team up for liquid-cooled GeForce RTX 4090.

Inno3D
(Image credit: Inno3D)

Custom printed board designs (PCB) and custom liquid cooling systems are pricey. Inno3D's GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Black and GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Frostbite boards have those features in an attempt to tame Nvidia's latest entry in our list of the best graphics cards, so expect them to be more expensive than typical AD102-based products. Yet the Frostbite version will likely be cheaper than buying an FE or a reference GeForce RTX 4090 board and an aftermarket waterblock from companies like EKWB.

Nvidia's AD102 graphics processing unit has been specially architected to hit very high clocks, but it needs decent cooling to push its way towards 3 GHz. To help the GPU to unleash its beastly nature, Inno3D teamed up with Arctic to build one of the industry's first GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with a pre-installed all-in-one liquid cooling system. Also, Inno3D has a GeForce RTX 4090 with a pre-installed waterblock for custom liquid cooling systems.  

Actually, Inno3D is the only graphics cards supplier that currently has two liquid cooling options in its GeForce RTX 4090 lineup. The Inno3D GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Black comes with a custom closed-loop liquid cooling system from Arctic (via TechPowerUp), whereas the Inno3D GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Frostbite is equipped with a specially designed waterblock for custom-built liquid cooling systems. 

 

(Image credit: Inno3D)

Both boards naturally carry Nvidia's AD102 GPU (with 16384 CUDA cores clocked at 2580 MHz boost frequency out-of-box) coupled with 24GB of 21 GT/s GDDR6X memory and features 12VHPWR (12+4-pin) auxiliary PCIe power connector designed to feed the board with up to 450W of power.

While the out-of-box GPU boost clocks of both cards do not seem to be too high (2580 MHz vs. 2520 MHz recommended by Nvidia is hardly a tangible increase), the highly efficient hybrid all-in-one liquid cooling system or a waterblock for a custom LCS promise to provide a very significant headroom both for higher boost clocks and for overclocking. Keeping in mind what typically can be done with GeForce RTX 4090, we are probably looking at 2.70 – 2.80 GHz boost clocks here without much hassle. With some additional luck and tweaking, some of these graphics cards may approach a 3 GHz GPU frequency (keep in mind that overclocking is a lottery). 

Another advantage of Inno3D's GeForce RTX 4090 iChill boards is their dimensions. Unlike Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition as well as AD102-based add-in-board with air cooling, the Inno3D GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Black and GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Frostbite are dual-wide graphics cards that can fit into any cases that can accommodate hybrid AIO or custom LCS. They are also shorter than air cooled boards, which will affect internal airflows within a chassis and will make it easier to install additional components after the boards are plugged in.

 

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Freelance News Writer

Anton Shilov is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • BX4096
    Seems like a no-brainer. Considering how much people have to deal with overheating cards even without overclocking, I'm surprised that every major card manufacturer doesn't have models with liquid cooling preinstalled.
    Reply
  • Tanquen
    BX4096 said:
    Seems like a no-brainer. Considering how much people have to deal with overheating cards even without overclocking, I'm surprised that every major card manufacturer doesn't have models with liquid cooling preinstalled.
    It's something I look for and would want, but my 3080 cooler is so large that I don't have any noise complaints and it fits in my case just barely. So there's really no reason to use the water cooling. The biggest issue with most of the companies is they want $200, $300, $400 for the additional cooler and on a card that lists for $1599. That's getting to be ridiculous. The water cooler should be like 50 to 100 bucks, Max, as the ginormous fan and vapor chamber heat sinks should be worth something and you're swapping those for a water block. I don't need RGB or any of that garbage. I just want a video card that comes in a simple brown box with a simple water block for a simple low price.
    Reply
  • toxicplume
    Tanquen said:
    It's something I look for and would want, but my 3080 cooler is so large that I don't have any noise complaints and it fits in my case just barely. So there's really no reason to use the water cooling. The biggest issue with most of the companies is they want $200, $300, $400 for the additional cooler and on a card that lists for $1599. That's getting to be ridiculous. The water cooler should be like 50 to 100 bucks, Max, as the ginormous fan and vapor chamber heat sinks should be worth something and you're swapping those for a water block. I don't need RGB or any of that garbage. I just want a video card that comes in a simple brown box with a simple water block for a simple low price.

    After I realized how horrible the fan curves were on my 3080 FE I broke down and bought a second-hand water block and I'll likely never look back. I'll probably never buy FE again because for some reason there's a PREMIUM on those waterblocks. IMO waterblocks shouldn't be a premium or niche product because they're a necessity to run the card properly without either being very loud or very hot. At least for FE. Surely waterblocks are cheaper to produce than those convoluted air coolers. Nvidia should be offering waterblocks on the FE series cards and encouraging board partners to make reasonably priced watercooled variants. Like yesterday. I don't get why they're propping up the likes of EKWB who is known to not be consumer friendly.
    Reply
  • pixelpusher220
    toxicplume said:
    After I realized how horrible the fan curves were on my 3080 FE I broke down and bought a second-hand water block and I'll likely never look back.

    I suspect we're basically within a generation of liquid cooling going full mainstream. Even upper mid range CPUs will provide significant noise benefits to a liquid setup.

    For me the biggest draw back is simply the risks of liquid. I wonder what the possibility of truly leak proof couplings might be.
    Reply
  • CoffeyDude42
    Has there been any word on when these go on sale, and where they can be purchased?
    Reply
  • Phase-Change
    toxicplume said:
    After I realized how horrible the fan curves were on my 3080 FE I broke down and bought a second-hand water block and I'll likely never look back. I'll probably never buy FE again because for some reason there's a PREMIUM on those waterblocks. IMO waterblocks shouldn't be a premium or niche product because they're a necessity to run the card properly without either being very loud or very hot. At least for FE. Surely waterblocks are cheaper to produce than those convoluted air coolers. Nvidia should be offering waterblocks on the FE series cards and encouraging board partners to make reasonably priced watercooled variants. Like yesterday. I don't get why they're propping up the likes of EKWB who is known to not be consumer friendly.
    Agreed its a racket , nearly 300$ CAD for most EKWB's.
    why ? its literally a milled piece of copper the same fitment as their normal heatsinks and a plastic top milled to funnel water.
    they should partner with Thermaltake or someone newer (or do it in house) and get it down to at least 50$ markup at most considering they wont be spending $$ on the other design which imho is more complicated.

    And also not only having the flagship product being water blocked would be nice for a change sometimes we just want the basic model but water-cooled because people already have everything else.

    I know lots of people that want to water-cool but cost is prohibitive yet everything always just runs better under water imho.
    Reply
  • jp7189
    Nvidia won't do this because they don't want to deal with the after sales support of water. If it's a niche then mostly people that know what they are getting in to will buy it. If this were mainstream, could you just imagine the problems and complaints from Joe average? Plug and play is where they want to be.
    Reply
  • JDJJ
    CoffeyDude42 said:
    Has there been any word on when these go on sale, and where they can be purchased?
    I contacted Inno3d sales support on October 12th inquiring where and when the iChill Frostbite 4090 (the custom loop card) would be available for purchase, and still haven’t received even a boilerplate reply. Their website lists Newegg as their sole US retailer, but they are not listing any 4090 cards, just 3000 series still. I’ve never owned an Inno3d card…never heard of them before the 4090 AIB roundup lists emerged last month. I was willing to give them a try, but now I’m a little nervous given their launch delays and lack of response to my customer support inquiry. If anyone has further info, please let us know. It would have been nice if the article’s writer had asked those questions rather than just regurgitating a press release.
    Reply