Nvidia lent us an RTX 4090 to test. A blessing, but a curse at the same time: where are we going to find a source powerful enough to supply the energy needs of this monstrous GPU? In the recommended requirements of this board we have the value of 850W. Since we usually review parts that are more focused on cost-effectiveness, we didn’t have a power supply strong enough to supply the 850W required by the RTX 4090.
We contacted Cougar and they came to our rescue – they sent the GEX 1050, an ATX power supply, modular, 1050W and with an 80 plus gold efficiency seal. Simply top of the line – creme de la creme in the universe of sources.
The specs fit the bill comfortably, but does this power supply really deliver what it promises? Will we be able to take advantage of 100% of the RTX 4090, without bottlenecks? Let’s find out.
Marvels Spiderman Remastered
We played with the graphics preset on Very High, in 4K, with Ray Tracing turned on and without DLSS. And exactly what I feared happened, our i7-10700 processor is not keeping up with the board.
It didn’t get stuck or unplayable, it’s running smoothly, 60 FPS, but this RTX is delivering half the performance it can deliver, and it’s really the processor’s fault.
When we activate DLSS, the use of the video card drops even more, but the FPS remains the same, which proves that we have reached the limit of this processor.
This i7 is far from being a weak CPU for games, it was released not so long ago, but the RTX 4090 is on a completely different level of performance.
That’s why I really wanted it to stay here with us in the studio – it’s the ideal video card to test processors, as nowadays it’s hard to find one that can keep up with the RTX 4090 in performance.
Even with this processor bottleneck, the game is very beautiful and running well
Red Dead Redemption 2
Now we move on to one of my favorite games, Red Dead Redemption 2 and we’re playing it, obviously, with the graphic slider at maximum.
This game, as far as I know, doesn’t support Ray Tracing, so for the 4090 it’s pretty easy to run, even in 4K.
And what a performance huh, it’s bizarre to see Red Dead 2 running so well in 4K, above the average 100 frames. That game that makes our notebooks fry at Roda Liso, at 4090 it doesn’t go beyond 62 degrees.
Playing this here, I was thinking about a TV that we reviewed this year, the LG C2, which is 4K, OLED and with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It’s the TV that would be perfect to play with this Nvidia card here, as the two match well in specs. The RTX 4090 is the only one that can deliver Red Dead in 4K above 100 FPS, at least for now, right?
The game is very beautiful and running super well, no surprises here.
cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077, by far the heaviest game we’ve tested, I set the graphics preset to Ray Tracing: Ultra and turned off DLSS.
Now we have found a real challenge for the Cougar font. In this game, the 4090 is pulling 410W, which is very close to the maximum power it pulls. Now the processor is consuming only 65W so, in reality, there’s still a lot left for this power supply to really work. Even if we were using a thirteenth generation i9 processor, there would be power left over from this unit. 1050W is more than enough, it’s total overkill, and there’s also the fact that it has that GOLD efficiency seal.
Returning to Cyberpunk, with Ray Tracing turned on and without DLSS it is complicated to run, even for the most powerful video card in the world.
Ray Tracing is extremely heavy, which is why Nvidia invests so much money in the upscaling technology, the DLSS.
Let’s turn on this DLSS now in Cyberpunk, in automatic mode we can stay calmly above 70 FPS, and the look changes practically nothing. The first versions of DLSS weren’t so good, but now that we’ve reached 3.0 it’s getting better and harder to notice differences in graphic quality.
So a little card to play Cyberpunk with everything on the stalk and Ray Tracing turned on, the RTX 4090 does the trick.
Doom Eternal
Ending here with another game that I really enjoy testing, Doom Eternal. It’s not one of the most difficult titles to run, it always does well even on the most entry-level cards, but it has Ray Tracing support so I want to see how it looks with the graphics in Ultra Nightmare mode.
We don’t even have DLSS turned on here, it’s raw 4K Ray Tracing, delivering an average of over 200 FPS. Of course, Doom is super well optimized, but even so, I didn’t imagine it would have such a high framerate. It was very good to play, note 10.
Source and GPU work together in complete silence
One detail I haven’t commented on yet is how silent this board and power supply are. I read a rumor that said that the cooler on this Nvidia founders model was designed for a card with a TDP much higher than 450W, and really, given the weight of this card, I don’t doubt that’s true. We still have to see how the 4090 Ti will be. I guess it will deliver little more performance in exchange for much higher consumption. Then we’ll see the fans on this cooler spin, and if we have the opportunity to test it too, let’s see if Cougar’s GEX 1050 power supply can tank a 4090 Ti as well as it held a regular 4090. I like having a silent setup and would love to have one of these in my room, it’s one of the quietest cards I’ve ever tested.
