NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with AD102-301 GPU
It has been reported by Redditor “cavityserach123” that NVIDIA is now shipping a new RTX 4090 variant under its Founder Edition series.
Nearly two months ago we learned that NVIDIA will be shifting its RTX 40 GPU production to new variants. According to the original report, the company was set to introduce new RTX 4070 and RTX 4080 variants with updated GPUs.
NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition with AD102-301 GPU, Source: Reddit
As it was mentioned, these changes were required to enable a new voltage comparator circuit on the board, it was no longer required to use the GPU’s comparator for this function. Some reports claimed that this could result in slightly cheaper boards and, as a result, lower build costs for AIBs and NVIDIA. However, pricing for RTX 40 GPUs has not really changed that much at this time, so that was likely not true.
Redditor “cavitysearch123” has just received the newest RTX 4090 Founder Edition after 3 months of waiting. It appears that the card that shipped to him was among the first to feature the AD102-301 GPU. The interesting part is that there were no reports that RTX 4090 would also get this ‘301’ GPU upgrade.
NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition with AD102-301 GPU, Source: Reddit
Upon closer look, the owner noticed that this RTX 4090 FE has a new model ID in GPU-Z. The Device PCI ID is the same, but the Sub ID has changed. This means that BIOS flashing with AD102-300 based model should not be possible, and specifically, this is confirmed by the user.
NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition with AD102-301 GPU, Source: Reddit
It is claimed that the maximum power limit for this variant is lower than the original SKU. Instead of 1.1V, the maximum voltage reportedly goes to 1.07V. Whether this is true, we cannot be sure because this requires more samples to verify. Furthermore, It is unclear if only NVIDIA Founders Edition is ‘affected’ by this limit or whether we should expect a similar voltage limit to be implemented on custom RTX 4090s as well.
The max voltage was confirmed through MSI Afterburner and ASUS GPU Tweak voltage/frequency curve editors. Despite changes, the max voltage remains at 1.07V. BIOS flashing to the ‘original’ RTX 4090 BIOS is not possible due to a PCI ID mismatch.
NVIDIA RTX 4090 Founders Edition with AD102-301 GPU, Source: Reddit
Hopefully, this change is nothing major and will have no performance impact whatsoever. Of course, we are looking forward to seeing one of these new AD102-301 cards being tested by independent media soon.
Source: Reddit
