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1.0 out of 5 starsSearch "nvidia rtx 3090 failure rate" - EVGA RTX cards have issues
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2020
Update: March 11 2021 This was a Four Star review - No longer
I can not believe this card just died tonight. It died as I entered a room playing Bioshock Remastered on Steam. I had just launched the game so there wasn't even any crazy fight going on. The cards fans spun up and the signal to the monitor died. I put my hand over the case and the card was venting an unreal amount of heat. A complete brick.
I've never had issues with EVGA cards before but after doing a search for 3090 failure rates, it looks like EVGA has some serious issues.
Given the price we are paying because of GPU stock shortages, steer clear of any company that is having problems with their RTX cards. I understand that EVGA has awesome Customer Service and I really hope so, because this is a major setback.
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For starters, the EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 out of the box performance is very impressive. I'm getting consistent frame rates even in busy scenes. Not one notable hiccup on frame drops in four days I've played using it.
I upgraded from my RTX 2080 Super. The frame rates notably jumped with higher avg frame rates. This translates to smoother game play at max settings. Playing Borderlands 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, the increase was within 15 - 20+ @ 1440. I'll also note this card has a physical onboard Overclock switch that is set Normal. I have not tested this.
Its BIG and Heavy
There's no getting around this. Length and Width are considerable and I would really consider the case one plans on putting this into. ie: Your case should be running a cool ambient temperature and offer plenty of space for air flow. It's three lanes wide and those fans need little to no obstructions. See attached pics for reference comparisons to a RTX 2080 Super. Medium sized cases with plenty of components inside may present ambiet cooling challenges.
RTX: Real Time Ray Tracing and DLSS
Yes, RTX can have some really impressive effect when used but its still very expensive when enabled. It saps an avg 20 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 and to be quite honest, the game already has some impressive visuals, for me, those extra frames are better used for actual fights. DLSS 2.0 is the real technology here worth writing about. It really does create some impressive scaling that yields impressive performance gains.
Power Hungry
I am running a two year old EVGA 1000 Watt PSU running an OC'd CPU, 32GB sys RAM, two HD's and one SSD and an optical drive. This card has three 8 Pin power connectors so it is power hungry. It is not advisable to use a power split cable (a cable with two 8 pin plugs).
Now, I have checked EVGA's official forums and the mods have verified that newer PSU's rated at 800 Watts or above are good to use two 8 Pin power cables instead of three. Having read reviews were people are encounter high temps, excessive fans, and frame rate issues, I went with three separate cables running into my PSU. I haven't encountered any problems.
I am running this on a Corsair water cooled system in a big case which runs very quietly and I've yet to hear the fans on the 3090 run up while playing any titles.
If you are running a much older PSU and/or its rated below 800 Watts, you might really consider upgrading it.
What Frame Rates can you expect?
Unless you are running top tier Intel or AMD CPU's your frames won't match those posted on Tech Review sites. My frame rate increases are relative to my existing hardware, particularly the CPU. It shows in the fact that I am using a mid range CPU from two years ago. An OC'd Intel i7-7700K. So I will not be hitting those numbers until I complete my system built around AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X.
Final Word
Unless you're a content creator, this card is a bit of overkill in the cost to performance gains. I use editing applications that benefit from architecture in the RTX 3090.
Due to its sheer size and power requirements, I really can't see this going into a mid sized cases especially if overclocking is a goal. Cooling could be a problem.
A card like this really is set back if its being paired with mid range components. I can see that with my build right now which is why im building a new rig around it.
For that reason, I would be hard pressed to recommend the 3090 just for gaming when the RTX 3080 is likely the best bet in cost and power usage. The net gains here are minimal in comparison.