GeForce RTX 3090 Ti: single-sided GDDR6X, new power plug, 450W TDP

NVIDIA is in the headlines again with the tweaked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with some interesting new parts that are slowly making up what will be the GPU to wrap up the year and kick start 2022 and NVIDIA's fight against AMD and soon, Intel with its Arc Alchemist graphics cards.

The current GeForce RTX 3090 features a 350W TDP while the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (or GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER) would have a 400-450W TDP. We'll have the same 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory but this time NVIDIA will reportedly moving with single-sided memory, versus the double-sided GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3090.

So, we have a new 450W TDP, new single-sided GDDR6X memory, and then even a new power connector. Yeah, a new power connector -- NVIDIA already shifted the game up a fair amount with their use of a 12-pin PCIe power connector on its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. But now with the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti they're expected to use a new standard for PCIe 5.0 -- possibly a new 16-pin PCIe power connector.

• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 SUPER series specs teased, 24GB on 3090 SUPER
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER rumors: 10752 CUDA cores and 400W+ power
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 predicted to cost $2999
• Read more: AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 7900 XT: new Navi 31 GPU, battles RTX 4090
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 leaks: beast GPU, 100%+ faster than RTX 3090

• 450W TDP, ready to smash AMD again: That's another 100W of power at the ready, over the 350W TDP on the GeForce RTX 3090. 450W TDP is pretty crazy, it should be interesting to see how much more NVIDIA can squeeze out of Ampere + Samsung 8nm with 450W of power.
• PCIe 5.0 power connector, ready for Intel Alder Lake: We are only weeks away from PCIe 5.0 launching with Intel's new Alder Lake CPU family and 600-series motherboards. The new PCIe 5.0 connector is backwards compatible, but will allow more power over the PCIe 5.0 connector... NVIDIA is reportedly gearing up for that. We should see a new 16-pin connector, up from the 12-pin PCIe power connector on the RTX 30 series FE cards, and up from the 6- and 8-pin PCIe power connectors on all other graphics cards.
• GDDR6X upgrades (21Gbps + 2GB modules): NVIDIA will reportedly be using single-sided GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with new 2GB modules versus 1GB modules on the RTX 3090. This means that the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti reference design would be tweaked, with a new PCB (that can probably also better handle 450W of power flowing through it, too).
• January 2022 announcement, release: NVIDIA is expected to announce the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card at CES 2022 in January 2022.