I Played Games On One Of The World¡¯s Fastest Graphics Card: Here¡¯s What It Was Like

I¡¯ve been obsessed with PC gaming ever since I got my first PC in 2006 -- a humble, pre-owned Pentium III that my dad bought for work, but ended up being my gateway into the world of tech.

Whether it was learning about the newest CPUs and GPUs in the market or helping friends build a PC from scratch in a particular budget, I was truly in love with PCs. And this love continues even today.

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I tend to upgrade my system once every few years and the last upgrade I did was in 2016, with a system running Intel Core i5 6600K -- a fine quad-core processor for the time (even today) and a Radeon RX570 GPU. However, recently I realised how underpowered my GPU really is.

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A few months ago, I bought myself a 50-inch 4K TV, and while watching movies on it is crazy cool, I was excited to play some games on it. So I decided to plug my TV to my PC. When I ran some games, my RX570 could barely keep up, even with graphics settings kept to a minimum.

This was thoroughly disappointing, and since then I have been saving up to buy myself a decent GPU capable of running games on 4K.

Just a few months back, Nvidia revealed its RTX 30-series GPUs and they have gotten some really impressive reviews -- especially the 24GB RTX 3090. I¡¯ve been desperately waiting for them to drop in price since poor stocks and crazy demand has skyrocketed the GPUs prices in India.

However, a few weeks ago, Nvidia contacted me and asked me if I¡¯d like to try their fastest commercial GPU -- the RTX 3090, a GPU designed for playing games on 4K without breaking a sweat (even 8K in some games) with a price tag of Rs 165,000. How could I say no to that?

Meet Zotac Trinity RTX 3090

This is one of the most premium OEM cards in the market. At 12.5 inches, this is a long card, however, what¡¯s cool is that Zotac has gone with a two-slot design which still somehow manages to give it a slightly smaller footprint.

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The card has an all matte-black trim, which is great as it blends in with most PC components easily. The backplate has cool slits that allow a slight glimpse of the heatsink as well as an RGB Zotac logo. At its side too is a massive RGB LED ¡®Zotac Gaming¡¯ branding that can be customised using Zotac¡¯s proprietary software. Overall, this card is one good looker.

The tech-specs

For the PC hardware geeks out there, here are some tech specs: the RTX 3090 GPU is a PCI-E Gen-4 card. It offers 24GB of video memory, 10,496 CUDA Cores and a 384-bit memory bus. The GPU supports a boost clock of 1695 MHz as well as a Memory Clock of 19.5 Gbps. It requires two eight-pin connectors and consumes 350W (with a recommended PSU of 750W) to power this monstrosity.

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For I/O, you get one HDMI 2.1 which, using the Ultra High-Speed HDMI Cable is capable of supporting resolutions up to 8K/60Hz or 4K/120Hz; 3 DisplayPort 1.4A with support up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.

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While installing the card on my system, I could only think of the potential this card is packing and what game I would like to run first. And when I finally hit play, everything changed.

Playing Forza Horizon 4 on 4K

One game that I play a lot is Forza Horizon 4. On my PC, I use a beautiful 27-inch LG Gaming Monitor sporting a resolution of 2560x1440 as well as a refresh rate of 144Hz. However, due to my graphic card¡¯s poor performance, I often set the settings to full-HD resolution, which is fine for a 27-inch panel. I wanted to see how different the game looks on the monitor at QHD resolution and then connect it to the TV and play on 4K resolution.

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While playing on the monitor, I was truly blown away with the butter-smooth motion blur of my Mclaren Senna speeding on the streets of Great Britain. The high refresh rate only made the experience feel even smoother. However, when I shifted to playing on my 4K TV, the game looked just like it was a video footage, of the actual car. Even my mom stopped to glance at the beautiful world of Forza Horizon 4. On 4K, I could easily get frame rates up to 125-130fps on the highest possible settings. which is crazy considering my card could barely do 60fps on High settings on full-HD.

Assassins Creed Valhalla in 4K

I reviewed Assassin's Creed Valhalla on the RTX 3090 and while this game is all kinds of beautiful. It is also extremely power-hungry. While walking through the beautiful grasslands of England, or snowy chilly regions of Norway, the game looked extremely spectacular. I could see every strand of grass while galloping on a horse, or while cruising on the longboat, I could see the wooden texture on the boat¡¯s tip.

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While these might seem like minuscule things, once you notice it, you cannot really go back. Although the game still has a long way to go in terms of optimisation, on the highest settings, it was able to deliver 60-65 fps on 4K, which was crazy good.

Death Stranding in 4K

Another game that has a beautiful, jaw-dropping world, was Death Stranding. The dystopian future where everyone lives underground might sound dark, but it translated to a rather gorgeous-looking open world with greenery and vast, unending landscapes that actually make you forget about the danger lurking next to you.

Death Stranding

Here too I could see far more detail in certain textures, like the grass or snow, the mud on the bike or Sam Porter¡¯s suit, to an extent that even the fabrics¡¯ stitching was clearly visible, simulating a feeling of realism I¡¯ve never experienced before. On 4K, I could easily get an average framerate of 95-100fps with all settings maxed out.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in 4K

When talking about power-hungry games, how can we forget Microsoft Flight Simulator? Surprisingly, Microsoft Flight Simulator gave me a good 28-32fps on medium settings on full-HD resolution on my RX570. However, with the 3090, I beefed up the settings with the maximum anti-aliasing, cloud geometry, aircraft textures and with all maxed out.

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Trust me when I say this, it all looked so realistic -- the whole world, the clouds, the cockpit and all of its instruments. When the sun would shine on the body of the white A320, I could see the reflections crystal clear (thanks to Nvidia¡¯s next-gen Ray Tracing) However, even with this monstrosity of a card, I could get around 50-55 fps. On QHD resolution (2560x1440 pixels), however, I was able to get around 60 fps (although, in areas with higher textures, this would drop to 55, easily).

All good things come to an end

Sadly, all good things come to an end. After playing with the RTX 3090 for two weeks, it was time for it to go. And as I was packing the card back into its box and plugging my RX570 back inside, I was just thinking about the experiences the RTX3090 was able to deliver, and how mindblowing gaming on 4K has been, while also being sad that I¡¯ll have to go back to gaming on full-HD.

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You might be thinking, sure, next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X can game on 4K too, but what many fail to comprehend is that the level of detail is dropped considerably on a console game to run it at the limited hardware that¡¯s at its disposal.

On the other hand, graphic cards like the Zotac Trinity RTX 3090 will always be there to push the limits and make the games look the best they can.

For gamers who are looking for a no-compromise gaming setup, a Zotac Trinity RTX 3090 is definitely worth going for, of course, if you¡¯ve got enough in your bank account.