Alleged Legion GeForce RTX 4090 Pictured as More RTX 40-Series Specs Emerge (Updated)

Nvidia
Alleged Legion RTX 4090 Images via nga.178.com (Image credit: @wxnod/Twitter)

Update 09/14/2022 1:20 pm PT

Later in the day, wxnod published images of Lenovo Legion GeForce RTX 4090's cooling system. Indeed, the cooler is as sophisticated as it looks. It features two massive heatsinks with dozens of fins made of anodized aluminum that dissipate heat from 13 heat pipes. To put the number into context, GeForce RTX 3090/3090 Ti graphics boards featured 8 – 10 heat pipes, depending on the model. That said, we can speculate that the upcoming GeForce RTX 4090 indeed has higher power consumption and heat dissipation than the existing Nvidia flagship.

Original Article

As the expected launch date for Nvidia's first GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards draws nearer — our best graphics cards list is about to get some new entrants — new leaks reveal more details about the latest GPUs. Meanwhile, alleged images of Lenovo's Legion GeForce RTX 4090 have appeared online, with subtle pixilation hiding the model number, but we can just make out a familiar font. The RTX 40-series news is bolstered by alleged specifications also surfacing. All this information comes from unofficial sources, so apply your usual does of skepticism and pull out a salt shaker. Regardless, it looks like Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 is really getting close. We should learn more at the GeForce Beyond event on September 20.

Lenovo's Legion graphics boards are designed primarily with the company's own gaming PCs in mind, but these cards sometimes find their way to retail as well. As Lenovo looks to be getting ready to roll out its Legion gaming rigs with Nvidia's upcoming flagship, one of those systems with a purported GeForce RTX 4090 inside was pictured and those images were published by nga.178.com and then republished by @wxnod.

Based on the most recent leaks of Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 specifications by @kopite7kimi and VideoCardz, the board will feature the AD102 graphics processor with 16,384 CUDA cores and operating at up to 2520 MHz, 24GB of 24Gbps GDDR6X memory, and a 450W~660W power consumption. Such extreme power consumption requires a formidable cooling system, something that we see in the images of alleged GeForce RTX 4090 cards.

Elsewhere, there are rumblings of Nvidia releasing two versions of GeForce RTX 4080, one with 12GB and the other with 16GB, but we still have our doubts about the 12GB model. Wouldn't a card with fewer cores and less memory and memory bandwidth make more sense as an RTX 4070?

Rumored Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-Series Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 - Cell 0 GPUFP32 CUDA CoresBoost ClockMemory ConfigurationDefault TGPMax TGP
GeForce RTX 4090AD102163842520 MHz24GB 384-bit 21 GT/s GDDR6X450W660W
GeForce RTX 4080AD10397282505 MHz16GB 256-bit 23 GT/s GDDR6X340W516W
GeForce RTX 4080AD10376802610 MHz12GB 192-bit 21 GT/s GDDR6X285W366W
GeForce RTX 4070AD104?????

Lenovo's supposed Legion GeForce RTX 4090 board features the signature Legion design with straight lines and a grey aluminum shroud, coupled to a triple fan cooling system. The alleged GeForce RTX 4090 marking on board has been pixelized, though we still see that we are dealing with a '90' card, so we cannot guarantee that this is indeed Nvidia's top-of-the-range board. However, there are other signs that we are dealing with something new and not just a rehash of RTX 3090.

(Image credit: @wxnod/Twitter)

The 12+4-pin 12VHPWR auxiliary PCIe Gen5 power connector implies this is a next-generation graphics card, as so far just a few graphics cards with such power plug have been released (e.g., EVGA's GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Kingpin, Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Gaming OC 24G, etc.). Meanwhile, some of Lenovo's previous-generation graphics boards used Nvidia's 12-pin power connector, whereas others relied on the proven two 8-pin power plug approach.

Another thing to note about Legion's alleged GeForce RTX 4090 board is the lack of NVLink connectors. Keeping in mind that this card is designed primarily for pre-built PCs, if Lenovo does not plan to offer multi-GPU systems to gamers, there is no need for NVLink connectors. Or perhaps Nvidia is finally taking the last step and ended SLI support completely with Ada? That would be an interesting change, and we've long since stopped recommending dual GPUs for gamers.

Other images published by @wxnod depict a box of Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with a picture of the board itself on the back of the box. The card looks to feature a massive quad-slot cooling system that is identical to one used by the company's GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Gaming OC 24G. While the package resembles Gigabyte's current style, it has brand-new artwork, which might be an indication that this is indeed intended for Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. 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.

  • Exploding PSU
    Now that's one really chunky card
    Reply
  • hannibal
    It has to be chunky with that power usage!
    Reply
  • cknobman
    Hard to believe people are getting excited for such a large, expensive, and power hungry card.
    I just have to LOL at a single gfx card sucking up 600+watts of power and then paying upwards of $2k for the privilege to use it.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    It's truly insane how large and power hungry GPUs are getting! At this rate by the time they get to the 10XXX series, they'll be as big as a house and consume as much power as Clark Griswold's house in Christmas Vacation.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    cknobman said:
    Hard to believe people are getting excited for such a large, expensive, and power hungry card.
    I just have to LOL at a single gfx card sucking up 600+watts of power and then paying upwards of $2k for the privilege to use it.

    Not to mention when the thing inevitably snaps and breaks, because it lacks proper structural support (and I've heard of this happening with the 3XXX series), you're gonna have a bad time.
    Reply
  • LolaGT
    That old saying, a fool and his money......

    Hey, freedom and all that.

    The only reason to buy these is to show your buddies that you have more money than brains.
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    That's practically a 5 - 6 slot card(need some space for breathing room).
    M-ITX builders are going to get shafted further with their options...


    Hold up - I bloody said it in the following thread, and some people didn't believe me:
    https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/rtx-4090-allegedly-30-faster-in-timespy-extreme-vs-ln2-rtx-3090-ti.3770645/
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    g-unit1111 said:
    It's truly insane how large and power hungry GPUs are getting! At this rate by the time they get to the 10XXX series, they'll be as big as a house and consume as much power as Clark Griswold's house in Christmas Vacation.
    No it isn't. This card is only a triple slot. I had a triple slot configuration back in the 90's when running Voodoo2 SLI plus a 2d graphics card. Quad slot SLI was pretty common for years. I ran a few of them myself. If you went triple or quad SLI you were looking at 6 or 8 slots and 1000W. Getting the level of performance we're going to get from a 4090 in a triple slot 400-500W configuration is light years better than we had in the past.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Phaaze88 said:
    That's practically a 5 - 6 slot card(need some space for breathing room).
    M-ITX builders are going to get shafted further with their options...
    It's triple slot. What are you going to put under it to block air flow? There are no multi GPU configurations any more. It looks like the 4090 doesn't have the NVLink connector at all. A sound card or LAN card is not going to block the air flow to a card that large.

    If you're trying to put a halo card in a SFF, it's been years since that's been practical with an air cooler. Water cooling is basically a requirement.
    Reply
  • cirdecus
    I don't understand why they would drop the memory bandwidth down to 256 from 384 on the 4080 and 4070 models? They're showing only the 4090 with 384. The 3080's had 384. I'm also having a hard time believing their going to have that big of a core count between the 4080 and 4090. There was barely a 10% difference in the 30 series.
    Reply