The Nvidia RTX 3090 is one of the most powerful graphics cards that you can buy right now. Nvidia claims that the RTX 3090 can run games at up to 8K resolution. While that might be the case, 4K at 60 Hz or 144 Hz is a more realistic target. So, the question is can an RTX 3090 run games at 4K 144Hz? That is the question that we are going to answer in this article.
The reference design Nvidia RTX 3090 features 10496 CUDA cores, 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and the graphics card can boost to 1.70 GHz. Custom variants are going to have higher clock speeds and thermal headroom that allow you to achieve higher speeds which can translate to better performance.
Can RTX 3090 Run Games At 4K 144 Hz?
Yes, the Nvidia RTX 3090 can run games at 4K 144 Hz but that does not apply to all games. 4K 60 FPS and 1440p 144 Hz would be a more reasonable target to achieve for the majority of modern games out there that you might be interested in playing.
Just because Nvidia claims that the RTX 3090 can do up to 8K resolution does not mean that is the case for all games. You need to take such claims with a grain of salt.
It will depend on which games you are interested in playing. Some games are better optimized than others. Competitive games are much lighter to run as compared to single-player narrative-driven games. There are all kinds of factors in play.
To give you an example, the RTX 3090 can run Forza Horizon 4 at 4K 144+ FPS and the same goes for Strange Brigade at Ultra settings. Death Stranding and Doom Eternal are well-optimized games that can do the same on the RTX 3090.
On the other side of things, if you run Final Fantasy XIV, you will get around 120 FPS at 4K using the Ultra settings. You can turn down the settings and tweak them in order to get better performance.
Metro Exodus runs at around 75 FPS at 4K Ultra settings and on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Flight Simulator which runs at around 45 FPS at 4K Ultra settings.
Sweetspot Of Resolution And Framerate For The RTX 3090
While the RTX 3090 cannot run all games at 4K 144 Hz, 1440p resolution and 144 Hz is a more reasonable target to hit and you can do that in most games. The RTX 3090 is powerful enough to hit this target without having to tweak settings in most games.
The RTX 3090 can easily hit 1440p 144 Hz in games such as The Division 2, Far Cry 5, Final Fantasy XIV, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider to name a few.
Leveraging DLSS For Better Performance
The RTX 3090 has DLSS support, so you can turn on the feature in order to get a boost in FPS. You can use this to hit the 144 Hz mark if that is what you are interested in but with DLSS on, you should note that games do not run at native 4K.
This feature uses a deep neural network in order to render scenes intelligently. This allows the graphics card to use half the samples for rendering. AI fills in the gaps. Simply put, you could say that the graphics card needs to do half the work and you get an image that is very close to the native resolution but if you are an enthusiast or the implementation of the feature is not ideal then you will notice the difference.
It is also worth mentioning that while RTX graphics cards come with DLSS baked in, it is up to the developer to implement this feature into its games. Right now, there are a couple of games that support this feature but not all of them do.
Too Soon For 4K?
Even the latest generation of graphics cards struggle to run games at 4K 144 Hz and it is safe to say that is going to be the case for a couple of more years. 1080p remains to be the most common resolution and when upgrading, gamers prefer to go with a higher refresh rate rather than a higher resolution.
1440p at 120 or even 144 Hz remains the sweet spot for gaming and when upgrading to 4K you pay a big premium and for many, the return is not worth it. 4K displays are expensive, especially the larger ones. Graphics cards that can run games at 4K are expensive too. The price alone is enough of a factor to scare away gamers.
4K gaming, especially at higher refresh rates just isn’t mainstream right now and it is going to take a while before we see the move to the higher resolution. Once we have better hardware and the prices of 4K displays come down we might see a significant shift.
Summing Things Up
The Nvidia RTX 3090 can run a few games at 4K 144 Hz with all the settings turned up. These include Forza Horizon 4 and Strange Brigade. In the majority of games, it will not be able to hit that mark without turning down the settings. You can hit 1440p 144 Hz in a wide variety of games, which is a great sweet spot for the card and gaming right now.
This is what you need to know about whether or not the RTX 3090 can do 4K 144 Hz when gaming.
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