Question about 3090 brand

[Chibble]

Hi all, I was in the process of getting funds together to grab a new PC but I now see the Strix 3090 is out of stock and the TUF version has apparently been discontinued? At least according to the message that popped up when I tried to turn my quote into a purchase.

Does anyone know what brand the basic 3090 on offer is? I previously purchased a PC from here with a 2080ti and decided against paying extra for the Strix but ended up having major problems with the Palit card that showed up - hours of phonecalls and an eventual RMA. The replacement card did a decent job but regularly underperformed when comparing benchmarks, so I'm wary and considering the overall price of this build and my move into content creation would rather pay more for quality, especially as I hear the Strix/TUF have better fans/coolers and the 3090 has had a few temp. issues. Would appreciate if anyone could confirm what brand the card would be. Much obliged!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi all, I was in the process of getting funds together to grab a new PC but I now see the Strix 3090 is out of stock and the TUF version has apparently been discontinued? At least according to the message that popped up when I tried to turn my quote into a purchase.

Does anyone know what brand the basic 3090 on offer is? I previously purchased a PC from here with a 2080ti and decided against paying extra for the Strix but ended up having major problems with the Palit card that showed up - hours of phonecalls and an eventual RMA. The replacement card did a decent job but regularly underperformed when comparing benchmarks, so I'm wary and considering the overall price of this build and my move into content creation would rather pay more for quality, especially as I hear the Strix/TUF have better fans/coolers and the 3090 has had a few temp. issues. Would appreciate if anyone could confirm what brand the card would be. Much obliged!

Usually Palit or Zotac but can be any stocks they get their hands on.

But performance will be the same on any card within margin of error as it's all the same GPU. The GPU itself is a single chip like a CPU, then the graphics card is built around it.

If you were having performance issues with your previous card it was likely due to a software issue or cooling rather than the card as they all perform the same with margin of error.

It's very important the build is configured as a whole, as every part is reliant on the next depending what tier it is. A lot of people don't understand how important a case is for instance to performance

 

[Martinr36]

It might be worth giving this a read and then posting a spec and answering the questions raised in that post as it isn't really worthwhile just commenting on one part of a system

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[Chibble]

Usually Palit or Zotac but can be any stocks they get their hands on.

But performance will be the same on any card within margin of error as it's all the same GPU. The GPU itself is a single chip like a CPU, then the graphics card is built around it.

If you were having performance issues with your previous card it was likely due to a software issue rather than the card as they all perform the same with margin of error.

Ok, thank you. I'll keep an eye out for if the ASUS ones come back in stock. I understand that the chips themselves are the same but as mentioned I had major issues with my previous Palit card that I'd rather not risk repeating. Of course I understand that I could very possibly have the same issues with an ASUS GPU.

It might be worth giving this a read and then posting a spec and answering the questions raised in that post as it isn't really worthwhile just commenting on one part of a system

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

I'm comfortable with my overall specs, just wanted to know which company the basic 3090's were from.

 

[DarTon]

@CJStevens. Just bear in mind that Nvidia is refreshing large parts of their GPU line. That includes launching a 3090Ti. It's not clear if Nvidia will keep selling a 3090 GPU once the 3090Ti is available or whether production GA102 chips will be just binned into 3080Ti and 3090Ti.

Some AIBs are moving their current 3090 cards to EOL status. Hence stocks of a variety of AIB cards are low right now across the street.

 

[Chibble]

@CJStevens. Just bear in mind that Nvidia is refreshing large parts of their GPU line. That includes launching a 3090Ti. It's not clear if Nvidia will keep selling a 3090 GPU once the 3090Ti is available or whether production GA102 chips will be just binned into 3080Ti and 3090Ti.

Some AIBs are moving their current 3090 cards to EOL status. Hence stocks of a variety of AIB cards are low right now across the street.

Thanks for the heads up. Perhaps I'll hold off on the build or have a check elsewhere then. I know the 40 series cards are expected to appear this year so I'm also considering just waiting for that too, but wanted to at least upgrade my GPU because it just can't seem to keep up with the editing work I'm doing. Although I got the bare minimum power supply last time as recommended by the staff member I spoke to meaning I'd likely have to upgrade my PSU too.

 

[DarTon]

Well I wouldn't assume the 3090Ti will be better value! It will have a few more CUDA cores and faster memory but Nvidia isn't refreshing their line to make consumers happy. They are primarily refreshing their line to give themselves more margin.

Personally, I wouldn't assume that an Asus card is fundamentally more sound than a Zotac or Palit. It might have a somewhat superior cooling solution and might be more overclockable, but the core GPU is the same and it's designed to minimum baseline parameters defined by Nvidia. I understand you had a bad experience with a Palit card before but that is very small sample bias.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I understand that the chips themselves are the same but as mentioned I had major issues with my previous Palit card that I'd rather not risk repeating.

What I'm saying is that it's not the card that's the issue, it's either windows config or cooling that will be affecting the cards performance.

All cards will perform around the same at at stock as they all use the same GPU chip. Any difference will be margin of error by cooler design, but we're literally talking one or two fps.

 

[Chibble]

Well I wouldn't assume the 3090Ti will be better value! It will have a few more CUDA cores and faster memory but Nvidia isn't refreshing their line to make consumers happy. They are primarily refreshing their line to give themselves more margin.

Personally, I wouldn't assume that an Asus card is fundamentally more sound than a Zotac or Palit. It might have a somewhat superior cooling solution and might be more overclockable, but the core GPU is the same and it's designed to minimum baseline parameters defined by Nvidia. I understand you had a bad experience with a Palit card before but that is very small sample bias.

True, and to be fair to Palit I don't think the original card's issue were because of them. I think my saltiness comes from how much back and forth there was with different people at PCS about the card before someone was finally upfront with me about it sounding like I had a bad GPU. Once the RMA was arranged things went smoothly but that first month was incredibly frustrating. I'll shoot PCS an email and ask specifically which brand is used.

My other concern is overheating though, as I've watched several videos talking about how toasty the 3090 cards get and a chunk of the videos about the Strix 3090 I watched acknowledged how the card ran somewhat cooler. I'd be sending in a 5000D airflow with the purchase of additional fans, so perhaps that would be enough. I did consider a custom loop but I'm not confident in the slightest about maintaining it so that was a no.

What I'm saying is that it's not the card that's the issue, it's either windows config or cooling that will be affecting the cards performance.

All cards will perform around the same at at stock as they all use the same GPU chip. Any difference will be margin of error by cooler design, but we're literally talking one or two fps.

No, it was almost certainly the card that was the issue last time. I think we actually spoke about it when I posted here previously: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/threads/2080ti-seems-to-have-conked-out.67450/

Ultimately I managed to get through to someone at PCS who said the GPU was likely faulty and a replacement was organized, but it was almost a month of back and forth while I was stuck with a barely usable system. The replacement card runs decently, it's just that userbenchmark says it performs worse than expected... however relevant that may be, and I've noticed that my Premiere exports often fail if I'm using multiple GPU accelerated effects.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ultimately I managed to get through to someone at PCS who said the GPU was likely faulty and a replacement was organized, but it was almost a month of back and forth while I was stuck with a barely usable system. The replacement card runs decently, it's just that userbenchmark says it performs worse than expected... however relevant that may be, and I've noticed that my Premiere exports often fail if I'm using multiple GPU accelerated effects.

I'm not talking about the original card, that was clearly faulty.

But the later card, firstly you were going by userbenchmark which doesn't account for overclocks etc, so it was likely performing absolutely fine.

What I'm saying is IF the replacement card was underperforming, it's not the card as they all perform the same, it's either the OS or the cooling that's throttling the card or causing driver issues. All same tier GPU's perform the same at stock.

If you'd posted for advice we could likely have corrected the issue.

 

[Chibble]

Ah ok, understood. I've just checked out some reviews of the Zotac 3090 on Amazon and a few have mentioned the inadequate cooling, while the ASUS cards have generally positive comments about the cooling, so in this instance I think it might be worth not risking it with a Palit/Zotac card as I won't be in a position to consider watercooling the card.

If you'd posted for advice we could likely have corrected the issue.

At the time I didn't really notice as I hadn't started video editing. The issues only really started to crop up when using GPU acceleration in premiere. And I mean absolutely no offense but my previous troubleshooting aided by the forums ended up with me fully reinstalling windows and pulling out power cables when the actual issue was that I had been provided with a faulty card.

 

[Bigfoot]

Ah ok, understood. I've just checked out some reviews of the Zotac 3090 on Amazon and a few have mentioned the inadequate cooling, while the ASUS cards have generally positive comments about the cooling, so in this instance I think it might be worth not risking it with a Palit/Zotac card as I won't be in a position to consider watercooling the card.

At the time I didn't really notice as I hadn't started video editing. The issues only really started to crop up when using GPU acceleration in premiere. And I mean absolutely no offense but my previous troubleshooting aided by the forums ended up with me fully reinstalling windows and pulling out power cables when the actual issue was that I had been provided with a faulty card.

The trouble with troubleshooting is that there are no short cuts. It would have been pointless to assume the GPU was faulty in the first instance, when the majority of problems are due to drivers and cooling. All other causes need to be eliminated first, before the fault can be laid at the door of the hardware. It can be frustrating, but a step by step logical process is needed to prevent even more frustration.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ah ok, understood. I've just checked out some reviews of the Zotac 3090 on Amazon and a few have mentioned the inadequate cooling, while the ASUS cards have generally positive comments about the cooling, so in this instance I think it might be worth not risking it with a Palit/Zotac card as I won't be in a position to consider watercooling the card.

At the time I didn't really notice as I hadn't started video editing. The issues only really started to crop up when using GPU acceleration in premiere. And I mean absolutely no offense but my previous troubleshooting aided by the forums ended up with me fully reinstalling windows and pulling out power cables when the actual issue was that I had been provided with a faulty card.

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination. You have to rule out as many considerations til you can find the trigger fault.

It's not something you just leap to.

That process sounds a completely normal method of troubleshooting. How would we have known it was a card issue without verifying it wasn't a Windows issue firstly? Software runs on the hardware, you have to rule out software which can attribute to issues in the same way as hardware related ones.

 

[DarTon]

@CJStevens. I understand your concern for reliability. If we look at the comparison table below, then yes the Asus is cooler than a Zotac. That isn't a free lunch, however; it comes at the cost of higher noise. It's mostly that Asus spins the fans faster. Once we look at the Asus using the Quiet Bios, the temps are basically within margin of error and with a similar noise level.

Obviously at a flat price spread, we'd all buy the Asus. Problem is that the Asus card will add almost £300 to the price. In performance terms the difference between a Asus Strix and a Zotac/Palit is also less than 5%, mostly around 2%. In performance per unit price terms, the Asus is really poor value. Reliability is in the same territory. A few percent better.

 

[SpyderTracks]

You also have to understand that these are custom builds. They are just vanilla windows with no optimisation. The user then has to configure it for their usage scenario.

The first thing you should do with a new system is run stress tests to identify cooling and stability. You then optimise this if it's not suitable for your workflow by tweaking fan layouts and speeds, drivers etc. Most people don't realise that you can adjust the fan curve, and most cards fan curves are pretty poorly implemented out of the box and ESPECIALLY for rendering, these are gaming cards, for rendering you'd almost certainly need to apply a custom fan curve to adequately cool the card. It's a vastly different workload to gaming.

It's also important if you don't understand hardware to get advice on speccing a PC as there are many components that influence performance for your particular use case and it all needs to be optimised to work together. This needs to be done before it's in building.

If noise was a consideration, then you would have been advised of a Hybrid GPU which runs next to silent under load, but obviously comes at a huge premium as well as a more suitable case to isolate noise a little. But without asking for advice it's hard for us to give some guidance.

 

[Chibble]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination. You have to rule out as many considerations til you can find the trigger fault.

It's not something you just leap to.

That process sounds a completely normal method of troubleshooting. How would we have known it was a card issue without verifying it wasn't a Windows issue firstly? Software runs on the hardware, you have to rule out software which can attribute to issues in the same way as hardware related ones.

Again, I'm not trying to be rude, I'm really not, but your own final post in my 2080ti topic is you saying that you didn't help and in fact complicated the issue further. I fully understand that troubleshooting is a process of elimination, but in that topic you declared that there was something "seriously wrong" with my windows install and that the wrong cables had been used for the PSU. I appreciate that there's no way anyone could have known the card was faulty, I'm just trying to explain why my confidence in troubleshooting via the forums wasn't high.

@CJStevens. I understand your concern for reliability. If we look at the comparison table below, then yes the Asus is cooler than a Zotac. That isn't a free lunch, however; it comes at the cost of higher noise. It's mostly that Asus spins the fans faster. Once we look at the Asus using the Quiet Bios, the temps are basically within margin of error and with a similar noise level.

View attachment 31741

Obviously at a flat price spread, we'd all buy the Asus. Problem is that the Asus card will add almost £300 to the price. In performance terms the difference between a Asus Strix and a Zotac/Palit is also less than 5%, mostly around 2%. In performance per unit price terms, the Asus is really poor value. Reliability is in the same territory. A few percent better.

I totally get that the ASUS series cards are, generally, overpriced for their uplift in performance. The entire system I had been planning to build was the same, though - overpriced Z690 mobo, overpriced DDR5 ram, overpriced i9 CPU, overpriced 1600w psu, etc. So I was more than willing to pay extra for the GPU as well. Having all of those parts and coupling them with a GPU build like Palit or Zotac which have notably worse cooling solutions & less overclock headroom just seems silly as I really don't plan to update again any time soon. It's part of why I didn't post my specs, because I know 100% that I am planning on paying too much when it comes to price vs performance. A custom loop was on the cards until I watched a few videos about the maintenance they need, which I didn't feel comfortable doing.

You also have to understand that these are custom builds. They are just vanilla windows with no optimisation. The user then has to configure it for their usage scenario.

The first thing you should do with a new system is run stress tests to identify cooling and stability. You then optimise this if it's not suitable for your workflow by tweaking fan layouts and speeds, drivers etc. Most people don't realise that you can adjust the fan curve, and most cards fan curves are pretty poorly implemented out of the box and ESPECIALLY for rendering, these are gaming cards, for rendering you'd almost certainly need to apply a custom fan curve to adequately cool the card. It's a vastly different workload to gaming.

It's also important if you don't understand hardware to get advice on speccing a PC as there are many components that influence performance for your particular use case and it all needs to be optimised to work together. This needs to be done before it's in building.

If noise was a consideration, then you would have been advised of a Hybrid GPU which runs next to silent under load, but obviously comes at a huge premium as well as a more suitable case to isolate noise a little. But without asking for advice it's hard for us to give some guidance.

Yes, I had someone on the adobe forums suggest tweaking the fan curve, which I did via thundermaster. It didn't help because the GPU wasn't overheating during rendering, it just flatly couldn't handle the amount of GPU enhanced effects in the project files. The reason I didn't ask for build advice in this topic is simply because I am comfortable with my specs, overpriced as they are, and just wanted to ask if the non-ASUS 3090s PCS use are from brands I've read have cooling issues. I'm not sure why this has become a bigger thing.

I'm not too concerned with cost, I'm not too concerned with noise and I'd happily buy a well-built AIO for a well-built GPU but I've not seen them as an option via PCS.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Again, I'm not trying to be rude, I'm really not, but your own final post in my 2080ti topic is you saying that you didn't help and in fact complicated the issue further. I fully understand that troubleshooting is a process of elimination, but in that topic you declared that there was something "seriously wrong" with my windows install and that the wrong cables had been used for the PSU. I appreciate that there's no way anyone could have known the card was faulty, I'm just trying to explain why my confidence in troubleshooting via the forums wasn't high.

That's not correct looking over that thread, we'd ruled out software and had worked our way onto testing the hardware configuration, again, that's a process of elimination. We were trying to identify if the GPU was plugged in with a splitter or two independent GPU cables. This was after we discovered your windows wasn't configured in UEFI mode which would have caused issues going forward including not being able to install Windows 11.

I appreciate your distrust, but we do actually know what we're doing, we're quite adept at troubleshooting. You may not understand the steps we're taking or why we're taking them, but they are educated and rational troubleshooting steps.

The reason I didn't ask for advice in this topic is simply because I am comfortable with my specs as they are and just wanted to ask if the non-ASUS 3090s PCS use are of brands I've read have cooling issues. I'm not sure why this has become a bigger thing.

The reason it's become a bigger thing is that you're not the only one referencing this thread. It's a public forum and others will do searches to try to find related issues and resolutions. You've incorrectly stated that the performance of the card was weaker than another due to not understanding how a GPU works or having an issue on the system that needed correcting, then there are various other misrepresentations through the thread that need correction for those reading in the future.

Unfortunately, by not getting advice, you've likely put up with a problem for no reason. It's not an issue with the card, I can't stress that enough, many many people use these cards without any issue. It's more likely a config issue with your cache setup, or a driver mismatch or something in windows.

 

[SpyderTracks]

On the original topic though, if the budget is there, I would wait for the 3090ti, they stopped producing the non ti versions late last year so it's possible there won't be any more stocks of the existing cards.

And for your uses, I'd suggest an Asus (but it will be loud) or sourcing a Hybrid card elsewhere which would definitely be the optimal choice but obviously at a cost.

 

[SpyderTracks]

For anyone else reading this this is why we've been quite hot on correcting matters.

Any GPU so long as it's satisfactorily specced for the usage will work fine. In this instance, the GPU wasn't the issue, as the OP mentioned, it wasn't the cooling either which was verified by Adobe. Adobe will be great at troubleshooting adobe software, but they won't be able to help with configuration of the system itself.

My point is that the GPU should perform absolutely fine on a healthy system, it's not an issue with that model of GPU, there is a flaw in the system somewhere that needs troubleshooting to identify the root cause and correct it. There are countless people with the same card with it working flawlessly.

Unfortunately the OP has chosen just to see the GPU as incompatible which isn't correct. Rather than getting it fixed they've lived with a non working system which is just infuriating to see as it could have likely been easily corrected.

The previous thread, to reach the conclusion of a dead GPU, you first have to rule out software which normally means a clean windows install to ensure drivers are configured correctly (as a clean install takes no time these days), and during this troubleshooting we verified that UEFI hadn't been enabled which would have caused issues moving forwards, and then we were confirming that 2 individual PSU cables were being used and not a singular to a splitter which could lead to power delivery issues. Once those two things were ruled out, we could have tested the GPU. The OP phoned PCS before we got to testing the GPU which is absolutely fine and our advice was to follow PCS's advice from there on. They verified a dead card. I have no idea what troubleshooting they'd done or if they referenced the steps we'd taken in that thread.

When buying a custom PC, as mentioned in the stickies, you are going to have to know how to manage windows, and do basic troubleshooting. If you're looking for something optimised for your usage out of the box and are not open to having to optimise it yourself, then a custom PC is not what you need, you need a dedicated system built for your use case. My major point is, if something isn't working the way you'd expect, it's very likely due to an issue that needs correcting, don't just live with it, get some advice in correcting it. If you don't want help on the forums, then give PCS a call, that's what your warranty is for, they will always help out.

Custom PC's take work and effort. Windows takes work and effort, there are often bad driver releases and bad windows updates that will cause issues that need to be corrected. But it's fun, and you'll get much more for your money, and a fun learning curve by buying custom if you're that way inclined.