If you thought the prices of Nvidia’s new RTX 40-series cards were ridiculous, wait until you see all the third-party RTX 4090 designs. Ridiculous doesn’t even begin to describe the RTX 4090 Serious Gaming (yes, that’s the name) from Galax.
Let’s start with the packaging. Exhibit A:
Image: Galax
Why is there a hacker on the box of this RTX 4090? Is this a member of Anonymous? Am I going to lose all my secret data if I install this GPU? Is my boss trying to test my cybersecurity skills so I won’t get phished? I really don’t know, but it gets better.
The RTX 4090 Serious Gaming includes triple 102mm fans that have increased by 5mm over its previous RTX 3090 models. That alone tells you this is gonna be chonky, and eight heat pipes and a large vapor chamber cooling base certainly back that up. It’s a “3.5 slot” design, which means in reality it’s going to take up 4 slots in your system. There’s even an extra 102mm clip-on “booster fan” if you want to make this card even bigger.
Image: Galax
Given how big this particular card looks, Galax has the ultimate tool to prevent GPU sagging for when a graphics card is simply too heavy for the PCIe bracket and slot to hold. The RGB Dark Obelisk support stick (yes, a stick!) will save the day thanks to its magical RGB powers and ability to hold this giant RTX 4090 in place. It’s not unusual to find support brackets for high-end modern GPUs, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen one referred to as a dark obelisk as if it were discovered in a tomb in Egypt.
You might think I’m being too harsh on Galax, but it’s not alone in absurd RTX 4090 cards. In fact, nearly every third-party card is absolutely huge, which might explain why Nvidia barely mentioned its partners during the RTX 40-series launch livestream and favored showing its sleek Founders Edition cards instead.
Asus decided to show off its latest RTX 4090 card in some kind of Star Wars-inspired shot of it attached to what looks like the world’s smallest motherboard in comparison.
Image: Asus
“Gigabyte’s RTX 4090 AORUS Master could fit FOUR Mini-ITX cards inside,” says VideoCardz. It’s big enough that it has an anti-sag bracket that supports up to a massive 5KG (11 pounds) of weight. “As the heatsink expands to dissipate more heat generated by even more powerful GPU, so does the effect of gravity grow,” explains Gigabyte. With the special ability to impact gravity, no wonder this GPU has a bracket.
There are plenty more huge RTX 4090 cards ready for when these next-gen GPUs launch on October 12th, priced at $1,599. “They’re all huge,” says Steve Burke over at Gamers Nexus, who has done a great roundup of all the ridiculousness going on with the RTX 4090 cards. Check it out below.