Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 review: a new level in graphics power

So far, rasterisation tests have delivered two contrasting stories with the RTX 4090. It is clearly the fastest GPU money can buy, easily outclassing the best of the current generation cards. However, at the same time, one might have expected more bearing in mind the gigantic specifications of the product - and where you'll see more of that spec bump actualised in performance on the following pages. However, this page sees one more slight disappointment, one really impressive boost and another game that sums up rasterisation boosts as an average across the board.

Just to reiterate once more how our benchmarking system presents, it'll change according to the device you're viewing this review on, you'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is a bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Hitman 3

Hitman 3 has impressive ray tracing support - and again, for a card of this class, it simply makes sense to use those features where DLSS can be successfully deployed to mitigate the performance hit. Still, the game is obviously demanding on its maximum settings as we're finally seeing more of what the RTX 4090 can deliver - 80 percent more grunt than RTX 3090 Ti and almost a doubling of performance over RTX 3090. However, once again, you'll note that performance differentials at lower resolutions are vanishingly small.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Between you and me, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider is widely used among outlets and is very much a 'benchmarker's friend', for our video based capture system, we actually need to manually cut out all three segments, isolate them from the in-between loading sequences and then re-analyse them - it's a pain but somehow we can't stop measuring this game. Still, the results are broadly indicative of the overall average increases in performance across the board you should expect with a fair wind: 83 percent faster than RTX 3090 and 66 points ahead of 3090 Ti.

Red Dead Redemption 2

In a glass half-empty scenario, we end with something of a disappointment from Red Dead Redemption 2 here, representing Rockstar's brilliant RAGE engine - 'only' 58 percent ahead of the RTX 3090 and a mere 45 percentage points ahead of the RTX 3090 Ti. That said, even with the lavish settings we've deployed here, you're still seeing the RTX 4090 capable of delivering an excellent experience on high refresh rate 4K screen. And that's before you've deployed DLSS, which - at the quality setting - you really should consider using.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 analysis

• Introduction, hardware and power analysis
• Game benchmarks: Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal
• Game benchmarks: F1 22, Forza Horizon 5, Gears 5
• Game benchmarks: Hitman 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider [This Page]
• RT benchmarks: Control, Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, F1 22
• RT benchmarks: Hitman 3, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Marvel's Spider-Man
• DLSS vs FSR 2.0: Dying Light 2, Marvel's Spider-Man
• DLSS 3: Marvel's Spider-Man, Cyberpunk 2077
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: the Digital Foundry verdict