COLORFUL GeForce RTX 3090 iGame VULCAN OC Review

COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 3090 24GB Vulcan OC

Today we are evaluating a flagship Colorful’s GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, the iGame Vulcan X OC. 

Colorful introduced its top-tier GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card last month. The graphics card is available in two variants. One offers a higher binned chip and factory-overclocking. This review cover this model, known as iGame RTX 3090 Vulcan OC.

The RTX 3090 graphics card was released in September at a starting price of 1499 USD. We have not been provided with an official MSRP for this card in US dollars, but we were able to find the price at JD.com. The graphics card is clearly the most expensive design from Colorful. It carries a price tag of 14,599 Yuans (2,233 USD) which is 2,600 Yuans more than NVIDIA Founders Edition (1,835 USD).

With a boost clock of 1785 MHz, the graphics card is already 90 MHz faster than the NVIDIA reference clock, at least on paper. This model has no overclocking applied to the memory, although as we have later proven in this review, the card has a lot of potential on this front. The GDDR6X memory has been set to 19.5 Gbps, although the memory chips that the graphics card is using are rated at 21 Gbps. With such speed and a 384-bit memory bus, the GPU offers a bandwidth of up to 936 GB/s.

The RTX 3090 is based on NVIDIA Ampere architecture which is manufactured in 8nm SAMSUNG process technology. The GA102-300 GPU features 10496 CUDA cores, which is just 256 cores fewer than the full GA102 GPU. For the time being, this model is the top tier in the NVIDIA lineup, same as Vulcan is currently the top tier in the Colorful series.

Card design

The graphics card is quite heavy (2.1 kg) measuring 32cm in length and occupying full three slots on the motherboard. Users who wish to install this graphics card horizostanlly will be pleased to know that the graphics card comes with a support bracket.

Vulcan OC has a triple-fan cooling solution called SWORIZER 3.0. All fans are of the same diameter of 90mm, but they are divided into two controllable groups. Outer fans and the center fan can have their own profiles adjusted through the iGameCenter software.

The heatsink covers the full width of the graphics card with a big vapor chamber located above the GPU. The VRM section is directly attached to the chamber with numerous thermal pads around the GPU. The pads are of high quality and have not broken apart when the cooler was removed. Do note that the disassembly requires as many as three cables to be detached.

The most unique feature of the graphics card is the LCD which can now be rotated in a 90-degree radius. This means iGame Vulcan installed vertically will not sacrifice the looks for practicality. The LCD can display multiple metrics through the software, such as CPU and GPU frequencies, VRAM usage, or the GPU load. It can also plot a graph for each metric, although it appears to be bugged and locked to a much lower scale, as shown below.

The LCD can also display animated GIFs, which are automatically converted to a supported format. In most of the cases the GIFs will be played at a higher framerate than intended. In order to upload the GIF into the LCD screen, a direct USB connection is required. The graphics card is bundled with a proper USB Type-C cable.

Board and cooler design

The board design is heavily modified compared to the reference design. There is no V-shaped board on this graphics card like we have on Founders Edition. It is a full-sized PCB with a small daughter board for the USB and RGB headers. The iGame Vulcan OC has a 14+2+4 Phase power design and three 8-Pin power connectors. The default power input of the OC-BIOS is 390W, going up to 420W, which is already 70W above the specifications. Those power stages will certainly be put to good use.

The RTX 3090 has 24GB of GDDR6X memory, which are located on both sides of the board. For that reason, even the backplate has a single heat pipe, which is certainly not a common feature, but it definitely was a necessity for a premium design with intention of further overclocking.

Bundle

The card comes in a standard box equipped with drivers and manuals, and stuff that is certainly not added to every card: the screwdriver with two bits, white gloves, and a VGA support. The graphics card also comes with an RGB synchronization cable and USB Type-C cable that can be attached directly to the motherboard USB header.

Testing platform & methodology

This review features an innovative way of displaying performance. Instead of just using simple bar charts, we rely on a more sophisticated method of displaying data. Each bar chart is accompanied by a time-based graph showing how exactly did the card perform during the test. Please note that:

• We rely on built-in benchmarks when possible.
• We let the game decide whether it should run in borderless or exclusive fullscreen mode
• All games were tested with two monitors connected to the system

More official photos from Colorful: