Such games may run just as fast at lower power limits, but that's because the GPU wasn't hitting its 450W TBP (Total Board Power) limit to begin with. Conversely, there are a lot of games that don't tax a GPU like the RTX 4090 much at all, even at 4K and maxed-out settings - Microsoft Flight Simulator is a perfect example of this, given its CPU-limited nature.

In short, the more demanding a game happens to be at whatever settings we test with, the more impact we'll see from changing the power limit. In our more demanding DXR (DirectX Raytracing) test suite, however, overclocking proved a bit more helpful and increased performance by about 9% overall. We've tested RTX 4090 overclocking elsewhere and found that in our standard gaming test suite, even at 4K ultra settings, overclocking only increased performance on the RTX 4090 by about 4%. We tested in 10% increments, starting at 120% and dropping down to just 50% to provide the full range of options.īefore we get to the results of our testing, note that without increasing the GPU clock speed, the higher power limits don't really do much for performance. This is basically a quick and easy alternative to underclocking and undervolting, and the opposite of overclocking.įor our testing, we've taken Nvidia's RTX 4090 Founders Edition and run it through eight of our most demanding tests to see what happens to performance, clock speeds, temperatures, and power requirements at the various settings. We can improve efficiency - and potentially reduce the risk of melting 4090 power adapters - through power limiting. For all that, it's not the most efficient of GPUs, but that's mostly due to design decisions. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 delivers new levels of performance, lands at the top of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, and is the fastest of the best graphics cards.

Msi afterburner power limit