ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti: Overclocking (OC)

It's time to hurt the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition, with as much manual OC that I can throw at it. Let's go!

Published
10 minutes & 53 seconds read time

Introduction

ASUS has one of the very best-looking custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards out of the flock of RTX 3090 Ti cards, with the new ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition rocking a cumbersome AIO cooler, but undeniable ROG styling that looks great.

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There's a new 16-pin PCIe power connector that drives the RTX 3090 Ti, with up to 480W of power at its disposal which is fed through 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The AIO cooler should offer more performance than an air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti, by keeping GPU temps as low as possible (and thus, GPU boost clocks higher than average on an air-cooled card).

But the thing is... the ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition doesn't go as hard as my MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. The GPU boost on the air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X is a bit lower, but the numbers on the RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X are better than the water-cooled ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti.

I think you're going to see a case of very, very select binning on the GA102 GPU inside of the RTX 3090 Ti... and the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X that I have just seems to be a damn champion. The water-cooled ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition is behind... for the most part.

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If you're after supremely low GPU and GDDR6X temperatures, man oh man does the AIO cooler help out with that. I'll dive into detail about that later on in the article, with GPU + GDDR6X temperatures much more impressive than MSI and its air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X.

Buy at Amazon

ASUS ROG Strix LC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition

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New 16-pin PCIe 5.0 Power Connector

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti does one thing very different to the previous flagship GeForce RTX 3090, which had ASUS deploying 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors on its custom RTX 3090 designs... but the new RTX 3090 Ti uses a single 16-pin PCIe power connector.

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But... how will you plug your PSU into the new 16-pin PCIe power connector, which you don't have? Well, that's why you'll use the 1 x 16-pin PCIe power connector to 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Your PSU might be able to handle it, but I would suggest looking at upgrading your PSU for the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti... especially with the RTX 40 series GPUs right around the corner, and man they're going to need all the power they can get.

That's why MSI sent over their new MSI MPG A1000G power supply, pumping 1000W of power with 80 PLUS Gold-certified efficiency. It also looks great, with MSI using patterns that can be infused beautifully -- with tons of power at your disposal -- with the MSI MPG VELOX 100P AIRFLOW PC case and MSI MPG Z690 CARBON WIFI motherboard.

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MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU has a single-railed design, which will deliver clean currents under heavy loads... making it perfect for MSI's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card. MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU is also "future-proof" as it meets the new standards for the upcoming PCIe 5.0 specification... for even higher-wattage GPUs.

I used MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU for all of my GeForce RTX 3090 Ti reviews, starting here with MSI's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. I will also be using the MPG A1000G PSU for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, and the new flagship ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti that should be with me any minute now.

RTX 3090 Ti 24GB Tech Specs

NVIDIA is using the full GA102 on its new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with 10,752 CUDA cores compared to the 10,496 CUDA cores on the same (GA102 GPU) as the GeForce RTX 3090. There are other tweaks, with the same 82 RT cores but 336 Textures Units (328 TUs on the RTX 3090).

There's the same 24GB of GDDR6X on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti as the previous GeForce RTX 3090, on the same 384-bit memory interface -- but with a big change: it's clocked at 21Gbps -- providing it with up to 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, up from the 936GB/sec on the RTX 3090.

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However, I've overclocked every custom GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card that I've got -- before, and leading up into this review -- and pushed the 24GB GDDR6X up over 21Gbps and enjoyed 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth for the last year or more.

Another huge upgrade over the RTX 3090 is that the new RTX 3090 Ti has its spiffy new 16-pin PCIe 5.0-ready power connector with up to 450W available on the RTX 3090 Ti... up from the 350W on the RTX 3090. NVIDIA is making plenty of references to its near 10-year-old TITAN RTX, and sure it kinda is... but it's replacing the RTX 3090, not the Ampere-based TITAN RTX that never materialized.

And if this is the Ampere TITAN RTX... then maybe it should've been called that, so I will not be referring to the TITAN RTX (even though I could, I have the results recently tested on my Ryzen 9 5900X) but no one in their right mind still has that as a gamer... they'd have a new RTX 30 series GPU so they have RT + DLSS... right?!

Right, NVIDIA?!

Anyway... onwards with the review!

Detailed Look

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ASUS ships the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition graphics card in a box worthy of the power of the GPU inside. The box is absolutely huge, and will command a large portion of your shelf... let's face it: if you're buying something this good, you're going to showcase the box as well. I do, because I love it ;)

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Man... the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition just looks like something else. There's not much different here between the ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti and ROG Strix LC RTX 3080 Ti, apart from a good chunk more power (up to 480W), 24GB of GDDR6X now clocked at 21Gbps, and a chunkier Ampere GPU.

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ASUS is going with an AIO cooler that is attached -- rather cheaply I might add, I truly expected... no wanted more from ASUS -- to the graphics card at the top.

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This means instead of the card being a huge 3.5-slot or bigger 4-slot GPU, it can be just over a dual-slot card... and radically reduced GPU temps to boot.

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The new 16-pin PCIe power connector, which then connects out to 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors and commands up to 500W or so of power. You'll easily pull 480W with overclocking, so be careful on your PSU when you're shopping around.

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ASUS does great work with changing up the display connectivity on the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition, as it does with its ROG Strix RTX 30 series GPUs, by including a second HDMI 2.1 connector. The other RTX 3090 Ti that I've got here (the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X) doesn't have a second HDMI 2.1 connector, and that matters to people -- and it is also more "future-proof", too -- especially since 4K 120Hz can be fed through HDMI 2.1.

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Test System Specs

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

The biggest upgrade to the GPU testbed is the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X processor, offering 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 3-powered CPU grunt at up to 4.8GHz.

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ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti: Overclocking (OC) 602

That's plenty of CPU power and offers a great upgrade over the Ryzen 7 3800X that I was using previously.

I will be upgrading this system in a few months, and maybe running it side-by-side with the new Alder Lake-powered Intel Core i9-12900K processor. I'm using one inside of the Allied M.O.A.B.-I gaming PC that I reviewed a few months ago, and man the 12900K is like the Godzilla of CPUs.

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Sabrent is the most recent partner of mine to help build out my systems, sending me oodles of the fastest NVMe M.2 SSDs on the planet. I'm using Sabrent's flagship Rocket 4 Plus 4TB M.2 SSDs which offers 7GB/sec+ reads and writes with a huge 4TB of capacity.

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ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti: Overclocking (OC) 226

ASUS has been a tight partner of mine for a few years now, providing their huge 43-inch 4K 120Hz gaming monitors for my benchmarking and gaming needs. I'm using two of them at the moment, the ROG Strix XG438Q and the ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitors.

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Benchmarks - Synthetic

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Benchmarks - 1080p

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

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Performance Thoughts

Please, please, please... do not buy the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti for 1080p gaming. I mean, if you want to have like 300FPS in multiplayer titles or something because you've got a 360FPS display, then sure. But for the most part you don't need to spend this type of money for gaming at 1920 x 1080.

Benchmarks - 1440p

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

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Performance Thoughts

Now, this is where the real fun begins: 2560 x 1440.

The overclocked ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition is hitting 99FPS average in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p... just a single FPS shy of 4K @ 100FPS average. You're breaking 4K 120FPS with the overclocked ASUS card in Forza Horizon 5, with 124FPS average at 4K versus 119FPS stock.

There's another 3FPS squeezed out of Metro Exodus, up to 74FPS from 71FPS while you're getting another 11FPS out of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the overclocked ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti... up from 210FPS at 1440p stock clocks up to 221FPS with the OC.

Benchmarks - 4K

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

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Performance Thoughts

4K gaming is where the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti shines.

Let's go -- Cyberpunk 2077 enjoys another 1FPS (yay) with the overclocked ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti... while Forza Horizon 5 scoops up another 3FPS bringing it to 95FPS average at 4K. Metro Exodus has another 2FPS, while Assassin's Creed: Valhalla enjoys another 4FPS bringing it to 74FPS average.

All in all I would be overclocking any RTX 3090 Ti you've got, but you're only getting a few more FPS... all that work isn't really worth it when the RTX 3090 Ti is already so damn fast out of the box.

Power Consumption & Temps

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The big trick from not letting the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition from tripping over itself and failing a large GDDR6X memory overclock... where on my sample, anything +800MHz in gaming above default and I got almost insta-crashes on 3DMark. Anything +1200MHz on crypto mining = insta-crash.

But if I didn't touch any voltages and just cranked up the power limit + temp limit to max, then I could put +145MHz into the GPU for a GPU boost of around 2175-2190MHz nice and stable in hours of benchmark loops at 4K.

  • +150MHz resulted in 1990-2105-2220MHz GPU boost clocks
  • +165MHz resulted in 2205-2220-2235MHz GPU boost clocks (stable AF)
  • +180MHz resulted in 2220-2235-2250MHz GPU boost clocks (crash) (+50mV)

What's Hot, What's Not

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What's Hot

  • Wicked low GPU temps: If you're someone who wants to glance over at your GPU monitoring software and enjoy sub 50C temperatures on the GA102 GPU, then the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition is for you. The AIO cooler keeps everything nice and chill, and that doesn't matter what punishment you're giving the card.
  • Low GPU temps 24/7: If you had a GPU crypto mining farm filled with GPU that are pushing 125MH/s all day and doing ~330-360W with sub 60C all-day, all-night... well, that becomes a big point to buy the ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti. If you are gaming more than most people, a water-cooled RTX 3090 Ti might be your thing.
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What's Not

  • GDDR6X overclocking SUCKS on this card: Luckily I've got two custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards here or this might've been a different story. I was hitting a huge wall by +1200MHz on the GDDR6X -- around 22.8Gbps -- versus being able to pump +1850-1900MHz into the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X.
  • Not much OC: I really thought the bulky AIO would help, but that's a big fat nope.
  • AIO is kinda useless: If you want the low GPU temps, then by all means... but it's not going to help the card perform better. An air-cooled GeForce RTX 3090 Ti produces the same performance -- and the cooling systems on air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti cards >>> air-cooled RTX 3090 cards -- so the AIO is a moot point for OC.

Final Thoughts

Now that I've spent a comfortable amount of time -- over 24 hours -- overclocking the new ASUS flagship ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition, is it worth it? Is that bulky AIO cooler helping it deliver the smack down to the air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti cards? Nope.

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Sure, the performance is still kick ass... it is a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti after all, but the AIO cooler doesn't help at all. It's not a bad card, as ASUS is using top-of-the-line components -- a very high-end set of VRMs, the cooling tech delivering superb results, and a high power limit (up to 510W).

The water-cooled ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition doesn't keep up with my air-cooled MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X when it's overclocked, but it's only by a few FPS here and there. Both cards are still going to crush 4K 60FPS games with RT enabled, or 4K 120FPS for esports games (and others with DLSS enabled).

ASUS destroys MSI's air-cooled GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X when it comes to GPU temperatures, with the AIO cooler keeping the GA102 GPU nice and chill... down to around 52C, while the 24GB of GDDR6X memory is also chilling at just 56C.

If you've just loaded up your new system with an ASUS ROG Strix Z690 or ASUS ROG Strix X570 motherboard, and you've held off on a new GeForce RTX 30 series card in the ROG Strix family, the new ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition could be for you.

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The big AIO cooler is something you'll have to get over, but if you've already made that decision (that you've got the room for it, and actually wanted the additional bulk even though there are no performance reasons why you'd do that) then you'll love it.

The biggest gimp on this card so far is the GDDR6X memory overclocking, which I was limited to pushing +1200MHz into it (22.8Gbps or so) compared to the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X which can easily have +1800MHz pumped into it pushing it past 24Gbps... incredible stuff. Not stable in every game at +1700-1800MHz, but for cypto mining it's absolutely rock solid. The ASUS... not so much.

ASUS ROG Strix fans will gush over this card, but with the OC dials turned up to 11... the water-cooled card isn't doing much to impress. If we saw the power limit pushing upwards of 600W, and the GPU clocks pushing 2250-2300MHz+ then that would be a different story for the AIO cooler.

All roads are leading to a truly monstrous ROG Strix LC version of NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture later this year, just imagine what the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 Ti OC Edition will be like. Oh man.

Buy at Amazon

ASUS ROG Strix LC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition

TodayYesterday7 days ago30 days ago
$1299.99$1654.99$1669.99
* Prices last scanned on 3/28/2024 at 6:22 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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