After the legendary RTX 4090 Ti was allegedly dug out of the bin last year, a YouTuber is tech testing a prototype Nvidia GPU.
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The reality of increasing e-waste is another thing that keeps me up at night, although every now and then such a nightmare unearths a real gem. One Reddit user said that after a recent move, they rummaged through a trash can full of computer parts and pulled out not just a surprisingly decent graphics card, but something truly special.
For years, we’ve reported on a GPU that never existed: the Nvidia RTX 4090 Ti. Canceled, one lucky poster apparently saved the prototype model from the scrapheap back in November 2024 (via VideoCardz), according to reports. You know, as they say, one man’s rubbish is another man’s GPU – wait, we haven’t been here before? I’m going to go full Danny DeVito and debut my trash-themed musical wrestling character, the Slop Queen.
All jokes aside, what appeared on Reddit last year turned out to be an almost complete prototype, with a MASSIVE cooler and the card itself. I say “appeared” because the Reddit post including the original uploaded photos of the prototype has since been deleted. But don’t be afraid! This is far from the final twist in the story.
Check out Gamers Nexus, a YouTube channel dedicated to technical testing, who just recently got their hands on the legendary GPU. After a slew of partial sightings like some kind of cryptid, Gamers Nexus not only tested a prototype of what is believed to be the long-lost RTX 4090 Ti, but also shared a teardown of the unusual, massive card.
Gamers Nexus first highlighted the somewhat unusual design of the massive GPU, calling attention to the placement of fans in the front, back and middle. Not only does this suck airflow right through the card, but it also requires more discrete PCB placement. The board in question is also a hefty kit moving around the belly of this absolute beast. is the beast measures 80 mm wide. A closer look at the PCB reveals a dense technology hub with a central GPU. crowded memory and several levels of VRAM.
The otherwise rather bulky cooler impressed during thermal testing, holding the GPU temperature at around 46°C, which is more than 20 degrees cooler than the actual Founder’s Edition RTX 4090.
But let’s get to what we’re really all here for – playtesting. The prototype averaged 62fps in Black Myth: Wukong at 4K resolution with FSR quality and ray tracing enabled. This was comparable to a retail card Gamers Nexus also tested, the Nvidia RTX 4090 Cybertank, which averaged 65fps. However, the gap between the two maps soon widened; In Dying Light 2 at 4K, the prototype averaged 82.3 fps compared to the retail model’s 91.6, and in Dragon’s Dogma 2 at 4K with ray tracing at maximum settings, the prototype averaged 76.3 fps. and the retail model is 84.5.
While performance is by no means terrible, it’s an unsurprising performance gap for a somewhat unfinished prototype graphics card, especially without readily available dedicated drivers to get the most out of the hardware.
It’s always interesting to look at the path less taken in technology, although the big question remains why Nvidia never brought this prototype into full production. Was the cooler too thick for this world? Who can say. What I do know is that time is ticking, electronic waste is still not solved, and that the reign of the comparatively svelte RTX 5090 is coming.