ROG Strix LC and TUF OG

Asus has expanded its GeForce RTX 40 series product portfolio with two new RTX 4090 graphics cards. The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OC come in regular and OC versions to compete in the high-end segment. A notable feature of these cards is their reduced size. The new card is physically smaller than Asus’ early RTX 4090 offering and many of its competitors on the market.

The GeForce RTX 4090 is a 450W gaming graphics card with a big cooler to match. Even NVIDIA’s hard-to-find GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition is a triple-slot graphics card, and air-cooled AIB cards tend to be even larger. For size-conscious gamers, water cooling cards are no longer needed and Asus’ new ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 is here. The closed-loop card transfers most of its bulk to the included 240 mm radiator block to load the card. By itself he is reduced to 2.6 slots wide.

ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090’s hybrid cooling system incorporates a cold plate that cools the large AD102 GPU and adjacent GDDR6X memory chips. Heat is transferred through 560 mm tubes to a 240 mm radiator, so even large cases are no problem. A low-profile heatsink with blower cooling fan cools other power delivery components. Meanwhile, the radiator itself is equipped with two 120mm ARGB cooling fans to dissipate heat as it arrives.

Another new RTX 4090 card from Asus, the air-cooled TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG is a unique case of its own. Technically, this is a new SKU. However, the graphics card reuses the TUF Gaming Cooler. TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

This is notable as the TUF cooler used in the 3090 Ti is significantly smaller than Asus’ first RTX 4090 cooler. The net result is that these changes will reduce the width of the new OG card from 3.65 slots (probably wide enough that his 4th slot should be left open for airflow) to 3.2 slots is reduced to This is enough space to ensure proper airflow to adjacent slots. The fourth sot is occupied. Overall, the OG model has been reduced in all dimensions with 6% reduction in height, 7% reduction in length and 13% reduction in width. Asus doesn’t disclose the weight of the graphics card, so we can’t comment on whether the new OG version weighs less.

By most accounts, ASUS’ current RTX 4090 cooler is very effective and also quite large. So, especially given the popularity of NVIDIA’s true triple-slot Founders Edition cards, it makes a lot of sense to offer a separate his SKU with a smaller cooler. The smaller TUF cooler is rated at the same 450W TDP as the larger TUF 4090 cooler, but as always there can be performance and acoustic tradeoffs involved.

There’s one more change that Asus hasn’t advertised with the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG. A rendering on the product page shows a graphics card with a longer PCB. One advantage of the predecessor’s more compact PCB was that Asus (and NVIDIA) were able to draw heat out of the backside of the card, as well as optimize trace layout and component placement. Meanwhile, due to the longer PCB, Asus has relocated his 16-pin power connector. The power connector is on the far right, not in the middle.

Between the two new cards, the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 dominates in clock speeds, boasting boosted clock speeds of up to 2,640 MHz in highest performance mode. On the other hand, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG series has the same clock speeds as the vanilla model, with a rated boost clock of 2520 MHz as standard and he’s 2595 MHz when the OC card is in max mode. In addition, the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090 and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OG offer the option of using a single 16-pin power connector or display output layout consisting of two HDMI 2.1a ports and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. There are also other commonalities, such as usage. .

ASUS has not disclosed pricing or availability of the new graphics card. For reference, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 and OC Edition retail for $1,599 and $1,799 respectively. OG equivalents may be similarly priced. The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 4090, on the other hand, can expect a significantly higher premium due to its AIO liquid cooling design.