Is The RTX 4090 Still Good For Gaming In 2024?
Every PC gamer knows that your games are only as good as your graphics card. Whether you're trying to outgun your opponents in Valve's "Counterstrike" or fighting a raid boss in Bungie's "Destiny 2," your GPU will determine whether you can crank up the graphics and frame rate for maximum visuals and precision. Nvidia became one of the biggest desktop GPU makers thanks to the performance of RTX series of graphics cards. Even if you buy from another highly-ranked major graphics card brand such as versions like this ASUS ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090, you're probably getting an RTX card underneath it.
Nvidia's chips have been well-regarded for a long time. Many of the company's most recent inventions have helped make possible the AI hype and boom that's going around the tech industry. And its consumer line of RTX 4090 graphics chips in particular are considered among the most powerful consumer-grade graphics card on the market.
But should you still buy an RTX 4090 in 2024? The answer seems obvious. After all, if it's the best GPU money can buy, then that's the end of the story, right?
Well, the value of a graphics card depends on a lot more than pure performance relative to the competition. Once we factor in the difference in price between the 4090 and its RTX siblings and fold in the expected life cycle of this generation of graphics cards, the calculus is a lot more complicated.
RTX 4090 is the best for ultra graphics but not strictly necessary
One plausible reason for seeking out a top-end graphics card would be to game in 4K with the graphics maxed out, and the RTX 4090 will certainly get the job done there, provided it's configured correctly and paired with other performance-focused parts. But this late in the card's life cycle, power users should wait for the RTX 5000 series cards. Rumors put the estimated launch of Nvidia's next-gen consumer GPUs around holiday season 2024, meaning those who can wait just a few more months will be able to pick up a new model, or even get a 4000 series card at a steep discount. And you never know when the competition from AMD will pull a rabbit out of a hat, as its upcoming RDNA 4 is rumored to release this year as well. Even Superman actor Henry Cavill is reconsidering the 4090 to see what AMD comes up with.
With RTX 4090 cards in short supply, even the most hardcore gamers have a reason to wait for the market to shake up. And, as we'll discuss further down, you don't really need a 4090 to get great performance out of your games.
The real reason to buy an RTX 4090 is to future-proof your PC. But again, that brings us to the imminent release of next-generation cards.
RTX 4090 can help you win twitchy shooter games — but you don't need it
For those who spend a lot of time in fast-paced shooters like "Counterstrike," "Destiny 2," or Riot's "Valorant," you're well aware that high, steady frame rates are the difference between victory and death. It should come as no surprise that the RTX 4090 will help you achieve those rates, provided you have a high-refresh rate monitor too. But you don't need the most expensive card on the market to get high frame rates, and you can easily crank 120 FPS or more out of a RTX 3000-series card, often without even sacrificing graphics.
For example, I play "Destiny 2" on a laptop with a RTX 3070, and even though laptop RTX cards are underpowered compared to their desktop counterparts, I easily achieve a consistent 120 FPS that only gets choppy if I crank up detail distance. However, performance does get a bit less consistent when I'm playing Sony's "Horizon: Forbidden West." The point is that you can get more than adequate frame rates out of older graphics cards, and if you need further evidence, just look at Valve's Steam Survey, which found in March that the most used GPU is an RTX 3060.
So, while a 4090 would be a future-proofing investment for your gaming rig, it's not strictly necessary. Meanwhile, AI enthusiasts are snapping them up for use in generative AI that can actually take advantage of all that power.
AI enthusiasts are driving up the price of the RTX 4090
During the cryptocurrency craze a few years back, GPUs were in short supply as crypto enthusiasts snatched them up to build so-called mining rigs that used vast amounts of electricity.
Today, the technology du jour is artificial intelligence, and, like crypto, AI applications benefit from powerful graphics cards. That's because they need to run specialized, non-sequential calculations that would overburden a CPU. Graphics cards, which are great for parallel processing, can train AI models more quickly and compute AI outputs as well. Companies like Nvidia and AMD have recognized this and are putting more work into the field by adding more AI-capable features such as Nvidia's Tensor cores.
The bad news about Nvidia's AI-focused GPUs for businesses is that they're expensive. Nvidia's new Blackwell chip, announced in March, will cost more than $30,000. Obviously, the average AI enthusiast won't be getting their hands on one of those. Instead, they're going after the most powerful consumer-grade graphics processors, especially the RTX 4090. As a result, we've seen a massive price spike, with 4090s regularly selling for around $2,000.
Once again, this should change when next-generation GPUs are released, leading to potentially massive price drops for the RTX 4000 series.
The RTX 4090 might not be worth it if you can wait
If you must purchase a desktop graphics card right this moment, and you won't settle for anything less than the very best, you should get an RTX 4090. However, the card is nearing the end of its life cycle, and will soon be outclassed by the next generation of Nvidia GPUs. You really shouldn't buy one unless you can get it for a good bargain, and even then, it's not an obvious purchase.
For most people who just want to play games, purchasing a 4090 is not only overkill, it's an investment that will quickly lose value as the next generation of GPUs are released. Moreover, as shown in the recent Steam Survey, the majority of PC gamers on Steam are rocking an RTX 3060, a GPU that provides plenty of power for the majority of games. The second most popular choice is an RTX 2060, driving home the point that you certainly don't need a 4090 to enjoy the majority of titles.
If you're going to adopt the wait-and-see approach, current rumors point to the RTX 5000 series being released sometime in late 2024. If the RTX 5000-series cards offer the same generational leap as their predecessors, you will likely be able to grab a RTX 5070 for less money and have the same performance as a 4090.