COLORFUL GeForce RTX 4090 iGame VULCAN OC mini-review

Published: Oct 26th 2022, 12:32 GMT

COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 4090 24GB Vulcan OC

The most powerful GeForce GPU made to date. 

Earlier this month, Colorful launched three RTX 4090 GPUs: Deluxe, Vulcan and Neptune. The iGame Vulcan is the premium design with an air cooler. We specifically requested this card for a test because we had already tested the predecessor. Therefore, we had a chance to see what improvements have Colorful made in 2 years.

In this mini-review, we will focus on the features and basic performance evaluation. We will test the card in synthetic tests, check 4K gaming performance and verify its overclocking potential. This is not a comprehensive review, but a brief look at the card.

AT A GLANCE
GRAPHICS
PROCESSOR
CUDA
CORES
MEMORY
CONFIGURATION
BOOST CLOCK
4nm
AD102-300
1638424GB G6X 384b
21 Gbps
2625 MHz (OC)

The RTX 4090 is based on 4nm Ada Lovelace architecture. This model is equipped with AD102-300 GPU with 16384 CUDA cores. It ships with the same 24GB GDDR6X memory as the RTX 3090 Ti model. The card is equipped with a massive 3.5 slot design, and it weights 2.5 kg. This is one of the heaviest cards Colorful has ever made.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series Specs
VideoCardz.comColorful RTX 4090 Vulcan OCNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 FENVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 FE
Founders Edition
Board-SKUPG136-SKU330PG136-SKU330PG136-SKU360
ArchitectureAda (TSMC 4N)Ada (TSMC 4N)Ada (TSMC 4N)
GPUAD102-300AD102-300AD103-300
SMs
 
128
 
128
 
76
CUDA Cores
 
16384
 
16384
 
9728
Boost Clock
 
2.625 GHz
 
2.5 GHz
 
2.5 GHz
Memory
 
24 GB G6X
 
24 GB G6X
 
16 GB G6X
Memory Bus
 
384-bit
 
384-bit
 
256-bit
Memory Speed
 
21 Gbps
 
21 Gbps
 
22.4 Gbps
Bandwidth
 
1008 GB/s
 
1008 GB/s
 
736 GB/s
Default TGP
 
515W
 
450W
 
320W
Max TGP
 
550W
 
600W
TBC
MSRP
 
1769 USD
 
1599 USD
 
1199 USD

Physical changes vs. RTX 3090 Vulcan

A quick look at the card itself, and the immediately impressions are good. It’s relatively a simple design with dark gray color scheme, full metallic backplate and minimal RGB lighting, compared to all Colorful models we tested (and there were many!).

What must be said is that this card is massive. Compared to RTX 3090 Vulcan, it is thicker, longer, heavier and has a much more sophisticated power delivery system.

  • WIDTH: 15.8 cm → 15.9 cm
  • LENGTH: 32.3 cm → 34.9 cm
  • HEIGHT: 3-slot (60mm) → 3.5-slot (70.4 mm)
  • WEIGHT:  2.1 kg → 2.5 kg
  • POWER (VRM): 14+2+4 → 24+3+3

The card is equipped with four display connectors, three DP1.4a, and one HDMI 2.1 output. The card has 24GB of Micron D8BZ memory rated at 21 Gbps. The upgrade over RTX 4090 series is denser capacity, this model no longer requires dual-sided memory, and as a result, the backplate does not have any type of cooling.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION
CARD DIMENSIONSCOOLING SOLUTIONDISPLAY CONNECTORS
WIDTH: 15.9 cm
LENGTH: 32.3 cm
HEIGHT: 3.5-slot (70 mm)
WEIGHT:  2.5 kg
Triple-fan3x DisplayPort 1.4
1x HDMI 2.1
PCB DESIGNINTERFACEMEMORY
24+4+3 Phase power design
1x 16-Pin power connector
PCI-Express 4.0 x16Micron D8BZC (GDDR6X)

Bundle

This card comes with a very interesting bundle. Apart from the 4x 8-pin to 16-pin power adapter, customers will also receive a VGA support bracket, a small screw driver and a small full-color screen. This screen is not pre-installed on the card itself, it can be removed and placed on a small, USB-powered holder. The screen attaches to the card by magnets and uses pogo-pins. Interestingly, it can be placed on the card either vertically or horizontally.

The card comes with NVIDIA standard power adapter for quad PCIe 8-pin to 16-pin connector. As for the screen, it seems to work fine, but official software has no support for it yet.

Testing platform

Review Hardware
HardwareComponentConfiguration
ProcessorIntel Core i7-8700K5.0 GHz OC
MotherboardASUS ROG Maximus X (Z370)ReBAR ON
MemoryG.Skill Trident-Z DDR4-3200 4x8GB3200 MHz 16-18-18-38-2N
MonitorDELL S3221QS 31,5 4K VA
Power SupplyEVGA SuperNova 850 G2
GPUCOLORFUL iGame RTX4090 VULCAN OC522.25 WHQL

Performance

The graphics card outperforms any existing GeForce RTX 30 or Radeon RX 6000 model in all four popular 3DMark tests.

3DMark Speedway
VideoCardz.com(4K, DX12) Graphics Score
Colorful RTX 4090 (OC Mode)
9898 (100%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (Silent Mode)
9740 (98%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
5912 (60%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
5414 (55%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
5338 (54%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB
5124 (52%)
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
3967 (40%)
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
3803 (38%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
3533 (36%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800
2913 (29%)
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
VideoCardz.com(4K, DX11) Graphics Score
Colorful RTX 4090 (OC Mode)
25654 (100%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (Silent Mode)
25234 (98%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
14007 (54%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
12607 (49%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
12457 (48%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB
11593 (45%)
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
15038 (58%)
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
14333 (56%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
12950 (50%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800
10568 (41%)
3DMark Time Spy Extreme
VideoCardz.com(4K, DX12) Graphics Score
Colorful RTX 4090 (OC Mode)
19398 (100%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (Silent Mode)
18872 (97%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
10709 (55%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
10293 (53%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
10042 (52%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB
9358 (48%)
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
10644 (55%)
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
9952 (51%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
9203 (47%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800
7648 (39%)
3DMark Port Royal
VideoCardz.com(1440p, DX12) Score
Colorful RTX 4090 (OC Mode)
25456 (100%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (Silent Mode)
24883 (98%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
14851 (58%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
13642 (54%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
13226 (52%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB
12151 (48%)
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
10788 (42%)
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
10398 (41%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
9536 (38%)
AMD Radeon RX 6800
7812 (31%)

Games

Since RTX 4090 is performing so well, we decided there was no point in testing the card with low image quality or lower resolutions. Instead, we opted for testing the card with various super resolution technologies where available. Starting with Metro Exodus.

Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition
VideoCardz.com3840×2160, DirectX12, Ultra Settings, RT Max
DLSS Ultra Performance
90
53
DLSS Performance
88
51
DLSS Balanced
87
51
DLSS Quality
61
41
Native
59
39
 
Average FPS
 
1% Percentile FPS
Cyberpunk 2077
VideoCardz.com3840×2160, DirectX12, Ultra Settings, RT Ultra
FSR1 Ultra Performance
76
36
FSR1 Performance
76
36
FSR1 Balanced
76
26
FSR1 Quality
74
23
FSR1 Ultra Quality
65
19
DLSS Ultra Performance
78
38
DLSS Performance
77
37
DLSS Balanced
77
33
DLSS Quality
73
18
Native
44
33
 
Average FPS
 
1% Percentile FPS
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
VideoCardz.com3840×2160 DirectX12, Max Settings/RT Max
DLSS2 Quality
161
95
81
Native
157
97
84
 
Average FPS
 
1% Percentile FPS
 
0.2% Percentile FPS
Hitman 3 “Dubai”
VideoCardz.comDirectX12, Ultra Settings, Ray Tracing ON, Aniso X16, VRS Off
DLSS2 Ultra Performance
76.4
38.3
DLSS2 Performance
75.8
37.7
DLSS2 Balanced
75.7
38.4
DLSS2 Quality
74.9
37.6
FSR2 Ultra Performance
76.4
37.5
FSR2 Performance
76.2
37.2
FSR2 Balanced
75.4
31.7
FSR2 Quality
74.8
37.6
XeSS Performance
76.0
38.6
XeSS Balanced
75.2
37.7
XeSS Quality
75.8
37.8
XeSS Ultra Quality
61.2
31.4
Native
69.1
36.4
 
Average FPS
 
1% Percentile FPS

Overclocking

Colorful RTX 4090 iGame Vulcan has dual-BIOS feature. By default, it ships with 450W TDP setting, however users may choose 515W BIOS with support for 550W overclocking. With this BIOS, we were successful in adding an extra 185MHz to the GPU core clock and 1225 MHz for the memory. The card looses stability with any other settings.

The card seems to be capped up to 463W on average, as long as software sensors are considered. This overclocking results in 6% higher performance.

3DMark Speedway
VideoCardz.com(4K, DX11) Graphics Score
Colorful RTX 4090 (Manual OC)
10620 (100%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (OC Mode)
9898 (93%)
Colorful RTX 4090 (Silent Mode)
9740 (92%)

CONCLUSION

The RTX 4090 iGame Vulcan is a premium design with interesting features. A nice touch is the built-in screen that can be detached and replaced with an RGB illuminated part (called Vulcan Lightboard). The OC button will probably provide enough performance for most users without any manual overclocking involved.

Colorful’s new Vulcan design is a very heavy card, but it comes with a VGA support bracket for systems with standard horizontal installation. As we can see, we tested the card with vertical mount and PCIe riser on a relatively old system. Even with those limitations, performance was still great and matched other RTX 4090 cards in terms of raw synthetic performance.

We have not observed any power related issues with this model, in fact, it barely went over 500W which is the default power settings for the OC mode. The NVIDIA supplied cable has not shown any thermal issues (tested with thermal camera). The card is also equipped with a very efficient cooling solution. Throughout our testing we have rarely seen temperatures above 70°C and that’s including overclocking.

Colorful RTX 4090 iGame Vulcan OC has an official price at $1,769 which is $171 over NVIDIA MSRP. At this price, you get some extra bundles, such a screwdriver, VGA support bracket, 16-pin power adapter and, obviously the full color detachable screen.

Learn more about the product here.



COLORFUL GeForce RTX 4090 iGame VULCAN OC mini-review WhyCry

RTX 4090 iGame Vulcan OC ( )

Performance - 100  %
Cooling and Design - 100  %
Overclocking - 95  %
Price and Bundles - 90  %

Efficient cooler
Minimal RGB
Detachable full-color screen
Very heavy
MSRP $200 higher than NVIDIA's

96%