Why you can trust Tom's Hardware
As far as custom cards go, the Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix checks all the right boxes. You get a modest factory overclock and a more potent cooler compared to the baseline models. There's perhaps a bit more RGB lighting than the reference model, but the RGB is somewhat subdued compared to what we've seen on other cards in the past.
Still, Asus knows how to build a potent card, and the ROG Strix models represent the top of the Asus range. Factory stock performance might not impress too much compared to the reference model, but the card we received did manage some impressive manual overclocking results.
The thing is, we're not sure if we just got "lucky" with our sample, or if binning by Asus will mean similar results for all the ROG Strix OC models. The fact that we reached over 1Gbps higher clocks on the GDDR6X memory than on any previous GDDR6X-equipped card certainly indicates that our card has 24Gbps memory chips that are just labeled as 21Gbps. It's virtually guaranteed that not every ROG Strix OC card will have similar results, though some cards might do even better.
It mostly goes without saying that you're going to need a very spacious case for this card. There are bigger RTX 4090 cards out there (hello, Gigabyte 4090 Aorus Master), but not many will exceed the ROG Strix dimensions. It's a good thing SLI is basically a thing of the past, since few if any cases (and motherboards) would be able to accommodate two such cards.
Pricing will still be the biggest roadblock. The RTX 4090 already carries an extreme $1,599 price tag, but Asus bumps that up $400 for the ROG Strix OC. That's why we dropped the overall score from 4.5 stars to 4 stars, if you're wondering — the street prices will need time to stabilize, but out of the gate the ROG Strix OC doesn't offer enough to justify the price increase. The overall performance is fine, but it's nearly identical to the 4090 Founders Edition. Of course, that assumes you can even find the Founders Edition in stock — that's not the case right now, though perhaps in the coming months the supply will improve, or the demand will decrease, or both.
Asus' branding is also strong, however, and our experience over the past several generations suggests there will be plenty of people willing to pay the 25% price premium for an ROG Strix OC card. We've talked to employees at our local Micro Center, and when a new GPU comes out, the Asus cards always tend to sell out first, even when there are faster cards available from a higher tier for less money.
We won't see a higher tier than the RTX 4090, though, at least not any time soon. There's nothing that comes close to its level of performance, and unless AMD can pull a rabbit out of its hat with the upcoming RX 7000-series and RDNA 3 GPU launch, we'll probably need to wait for an RTX 4090 Ti before we'll see anything substantially faster. Or wait a couple more years and let's see what Nvidia's RTX 5090 has to offer in 2024.
- MORE: Best Graphics Cards
- MORE: GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy
- MORE: All Graphics Content
Current page: Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix: Cardzilla
Prev Page Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix: Power, Temps, Noise, Etc.Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.
Deckintosh has Apple's latest macOS Sequoia running on the Steam Deck
User scores a Ryzen 7 5700X3D for $130 on AliExpress — lucky buyer gets legit CPU for 38% lower than the street price
AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU beats Intel Core Ultra 200V CPU in Linux showdown — Strix Point was up to 1.6X faster than Lunar Lake
-
-Fran- Thanks for the review, but I hate to say this: you missed the most important thing here...Reply
Can you do a proper workout with this card? How many calories do you burn by just unboxing it and then installing it in a case (when it fits)? Can you hold two at the same time without breaking your back?
Regards :LOL: -
JarredWaltonGPU
I'll be following up with my new "90 Days to a Better You" fitness program.-Fran- said:Thanks for the review, but I hate to say this: you missed the most important thing here...
Can you do a proper workout with this card? How many calories do you burn by just unboxing it and then installing it in a case (when it fits)? Can you hold two at the same time without breaking your back?
Regards :LOL:
I may have already injured my wrist while trying to install the card, though... ;) -
-Fran-
Hell yeah. Most expensive fitness program ever xDJarredWaltonGPU said:I'll be following up with my new "90 Days to a Better You" fitness program.
I may have already injured my wrist while trying to install the card, though... ;)
And I hope your wrist is actually fine. You still have the AIO-cooled one to review, no?
Regards. -
JarredWaltonGPU
Yeah, MSI, Gigabyte, PNY, Colorful, and Galax are still incoming, probably in that order. Maybe a Zotac as well (still waiting for confirmation on that one).-Fran- said:Hell yeah. Most expensive fitness program ever xD
And I hope your wrist is actually fine. You still have the AIO-cooled one to review, no?
Regards. -
Zizo007 No one finds it weird that even big OCs on the core and memory only results in minor performance increase, 5% and less? I looked up many reviews online and they all show the same even for the Gigabyte rtx 4090 OC thats been clocked to 3ghz core and 25.6ghz memory. Thats a 22% OC only on the memory. My strix 2080 Ti benefits a lot more from OC. I wonder if we're CPU limited with an OCed rtx 4090.Reply -
JarredWaltonGPU
The GPU core overclocks are what really matters, and if you do the math, you'll find that even though the reference 4090 Founders Edition claims a boost clock of 2520MHz, in practice it runs at around 2750MHz. Then you overclock to 2950MHz and that represents a 7% increase in clock speed. Given the memory overclocks are much higher — on the Asus card I managed 24.5Gbps vs. 21Gbps stock, so that's a 17% increase — it just means that the large L2 cache and architecture make raw memory bandwidth less of a factor. I suspect even without the memory OC, the 7% increase in GPU clocks will give you a 3-5% boost in performance, meaning the VRAM only accounts for an extra 2% or so.Zizo007 said:No one finds it weird that even big OCs on the core and memory only results in minor performance increase, 5% and less? I looked up many reviews online and they all show the same even for the Gigabyte rtx 4090 OC thats been clocked to 3ghz core and 25.6ghz memory. Thats a 22% OC only on the memory. My strix 2080 Ti benefits a lot more from OC. I wonder if we're CPU limited with an OCed rtx 4090. -
Murissokah The 4090 is a beast, but I can't look at a 4-slot VGA and see at as anything other than bad design. Watercooled solutions are like MSI's make it more palatable, but I'm still not very happy with almost 500W of power and heat. Hoping AMD can come up with something competitive.Reply -
Tenin You mention the 4 screws for securing the heatsink to the GPU needs to be installed using a torque screwdriver to avoid overtightening. Any chance you can share the torque value needed ? Thanks in advance :)Reply -
JarredWaltonGPU
I note that you're supposed to use a torque screwdriver. Honestly: I don't have one. I basically check how 'tight' a screw is before dismantling, and try to get roughly the same level of tightness. In general, just tightening until the screw 'stops' is good enough — don't overtighten or force things.Tenin said:You mention the 4 screws for securing the heatsink to the GPU needs to be installed using a torque screwdriver to avoid overtightening. Any chance you can share the torque value needed ? Thanks in advance :)