Now at Micro Center: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090!

Written by Sean Mekinda

The next generation of NVIDIA graphics cards has arrived at Micro Center, and leading the charge is the GeForce RTX 4090! Not only does the RTX 4090 pack a massive amount of power, it also heralds the arrival of a suite of new NVIDIA features, including improved ray tracing performance and the newly-launched DLSS 3.

Image: NVIDIA

What's new with GeForce RTX 4090?

Hardware:

The GeForce RTX is the first of NVIDIA's new lineup using Ada Lovelace Architecture. This new architecture promises 2x better performance and power efficiency with new streaming multiprocessors as well as better ray tracing and improved AI-neural graphics (check out DLSS 3 below for more details on that). To accomplish this, NVIDIA has brought out the (also new!) fourth generation of tensor cores. These new Tensor Cores will most notably impact DLSS, with a 5x increase in speed over previous generations. Also new is the third generation of Ray Tracing Cores, with a 2x boost over the last generation of Ray Tracing Cores. Of course, NVIDIA favorites also return, enhanced by the raw power of the RTX 4090, like NVIDA Reflex to reduce system-side latency for snappier gaming, and a full suite of creativity tools, including NVIDIA Studio, Encoder, Broadcast, Omniverse, and Canvas.

DLSS 3:

DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, has been a staple of NVIDIA's GPU lineup for a while now. It, in essence, takes lower-resolution frames and, using AI, upscales them to higher-resolution frames while putting minimal power consumption on your GPU. This gives users a higher frame rate, beyond the capabilities of their GPU alone. DLSS 3 takes this a step further, using a more advanced AI to generate additional frames of equal quality to your settings. This has the potential to take a GPU running Cyberpunk 2077 from 22 FPS to a whopping 85 FPS, a significant increase that will take your game from choppy to buttery smooth.

Ray Tracing:

Ray tracing is one of those subtle things in gaming. When it works, by accurately mapping reflections and dispersions of light, you'll barely notice it, as it becomes a seamless part of the world. But without it, the hustle and bustle of Cyberpunk's Night City just isn't as vibrant. NVIDIA is constantly working to improve the impact and efficiency of ray tracing, and their new third-gen Ray Tracing Cores are a massive step forward. The new generation comes with a new Opacity Micromap Engine and a new Displaced Micro-Mesh Engine. These two new engines will allow for more complex locations, including fences, foliage, and other light-intensive locations, to be ray traced faster than ever before, bringing a new level of immersion to every ray-tracing-enabled game.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Specs at a Glance:

• RAM: 24GB GDDR6X
• CUDA Cores: 16384
• PCIe support: 4.0
• Architecture: Ada Lovelace
• Base Clock Speed: 2.23GHz
• Boost clock speed: 2.52GHz
• Ray Tracing Cores: 3rd Generation
• Tensor Cores: 4th Generation
• Max Display Resolution: 7680x4320 (That's 8k gaming!)

NVIDIA's brand new GeForce RTX 4090 is available now at Micro Center! Be sure to check out our GeForce RTX 4090 Benchmarks (Coming soon!) to see how it stacks up and our GeForce RTX 4090 Build Guide for ideas for your next rig!