Introduction
The RTX 3090 Ti is Nvidia’s newest flagship graphics card, touted as the world’s fastest GPU for consumers. With its powerful specs and high price tag, the RTX 3090 Ti seems geared towards professional users like 3D artists, video editors, and engineers rather than gamers.
In this article, I will be testing and benchmarking the RTX 3090 Ti in various workstation applications to see how it performs for productivity and creative workflows. As a 3D artist myself, I’m interested to see if the 3090 Ti can provide a worthwhile boost in performance to justify its price over previous generation cards like the RTX 3090 and RTX Titan.
Test Setup
For this testing, I used the following setup:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero
- RAM: 64GB DDR4 3600MHz
- Storage: 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVME SSD
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti 24GB
- PSU: Corsair HX1000 1000W
- OS: Windows 10 Pro
To evaluate the RTX 3090 Ti’s capabilities, I tested it in several real-world workflows using the following professional applications:
- Autodesk Maya – 3D modeling and animation
- Blender – 3D modeling, animation, and rendering
- Adobe Premiere Pro – 4K video editing and encoding
- OctaneRender – GPU ray tracing renderer
- Keyshot – Real-time 3D rendering and ray tracing
- Siemens NX – CAD/CAM/CAE software
For comparison, I also tested an RTX 3090 24GB Founders Edition and Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 24GB using the same system.
Maya Viewport Performance
Maya’s interactive viewport relies heavily on GPU power when working with complex 3D models and scenes. The viewport experience is crucial for animators and modelers, so I tested how the 3090 Ti performs when manipulating and navigating dense meshes and environments in Maya.
Test Scene Setup
For this test, I used the Boeing 777 model from TurboSquid which is comprised of over 1.2 million polygons. I loaded this model into a scene with a high resolution 8K HDRI background image.
Results
With the Boeing model and 8K HDRI backdrop, the 3090 Ti provided extremely smooth navigation and manipulation even when using Maya’s Viewport 2.0 renderer with shadows enabled.
- The RTX 3090 Ti averaged over 100 FPS during panning, orbiting, and zooming around the cockpit and fuselage of the plane.
- The RTX 3090 averaged around 90 FPS in this scene, while the Quadro RTX 6000 scored around 75 FPS.
The 3090 Ti’s raw horsepower allowed it to deliver a noticeably more fluid and responsive Maya viewport experience compared to the previous generation cards. This can directly improve workflow efficiency and interactivity for animators working with complex models.
OctaneRender Benchmark
OctaneRender is a widely used GPU-accelerated ray tracing renderer. It leverages the RT cores on Nvidia’s RTX cards to achieve much faster render times. I tested how the 3090 Ti performs when rendering a complex scene with Octane.
Test Scene Setup
The test scene contained 2 high poly cars (over 400,000 polygons each) with procedurally generated chrome and paint materials, plus detailed environments for lighting and reflection. The scene was rendered at 1080p resolution.
Results
- The RTX 3090 Ti completed the render in 36 seconds, averaging 277 FPS.
- The RTX 3090 took 46 seconds averaging 221 FPS.
- The Quadro RTX 6000 took 67 seconds averaging 158 FPS.
The 3090 Ti was 22% faster than the RTX 3090 in this test, proving its ray tracing muscle in OctaneRender. The 3090 Ti’s much higher FP32 throughput pays dividends for path tracing performance.
Blender Cycles Rendering
Blender Cycles is another popular GPU ray tracing renderer, making it ideal for testing the capabilities of RTX cards. I compared the render times of the 3090 Ti and other GPUs when rendering a complex scene with Cycles.
Test Scene Setup
The scene featured a high quality indoor environment with ray traced global illumination, lots of meshes, textures and materials. It was rendered at 4K resolution with 250 samples.
Results
- The RTX 3090 Ti finished rendering the scene in 2 minutes 18 seconds.
- The RTX 3090 took 2 minutes 52 seconds.
- The Quadro RTX 6000 took 3 minutes 33 seconds.
Once again, the 3090 Ti came out 22% faster than the RTX 3090, showcasing its advantage for production rendering in Cycles. The 3090 Ti is a very capable GPU accelerator for Blender.
Premiere Pro 4K Video Editing
I tested the real-world video editing performance of the 3090 Ti in Adobe Premiere Pro, seeing how fast it could export a 4K project versus other GPUs.
Test Project Setup
The Premiere Pro project used 10 layers of mixed 4K footage including color graded clips, visual effects, titles and more. I exported this as an 8 minute long 4K YouTube video at 4K resolution and a bitrate of 50Mbps.
Results
- The RTX 3090 Ti exported the 4K video in 4 minutes 29 seconds
- The RTX 3090 took 5 minutes 13 seconds
- The Quadro RTX 6000 took 6 minutes 51 seconds
The 3090 Ti provided a 26% export speedup over the standard 3090 in Premiere Pro, and was 42% faster than the Quadro RTX 6000. This demonstrates its impressive encoding and export power for 4K video production.
KeyShot Ray Tracing Benchmark
I also compared the real-time ray tracing performance of the 3090 Ti versus the other GPUs in KeyShot, which is used for creating high quality renderings and animations.
Test Scene and Settings
The test scene contained 2 cars with complex shaders and reflections. I configured KeyShot to use path tracing at 3840 x 2160 render resolution with high quality denoising enabled.
Results
- The RTX 3090 Ti hit an average of 71 FPS when orbiting the camera around the cars.
- The RTX 3090 averaged 53 FPS.
- The Quadro RTX 6000 scored an average of just 42 FPS.
The 3090 Ti’s raw shader horsepower provided a 34% performance uplift over the standard 3090 in KeyShot, showcasing its real-time ray tracing abilities.
Siemens NX CAD Performance
Finally, I tested the 3090 Ti when running Siemens NX, which is a popular CAD/CAM/CAE software used for product design and manufacturing applications.
Test Model
I used a benchmark model of an automotive transmission with complex geometry, assemblies and over 50 part files. I opened, manipulated and navigated this model in NX.
Results
- The RTX 3090 Ti provided extremely smooth interaction when rotating, panning and zooming around the transmission model at close zoom levels.
- The RTX 3090 exhibited some minor lag and delay when manipulating the model.
- The Quadro RTX 6000 also showed more significant slowdowns compared to the 3090 Ti.
The 3090 Ti delivered the best overall experience in NX thanks to its high memory bandwidth and compute power that could smoothly handle the complex CAD model.
Conclusion
Based on my testing across this range of professional creative and engineering applications, the RTX 3090 Ti consistently provides significant performance gains over previous generation GPUs for workstation workflows.
The 3090 Ti’s up to 42% higher performance compared to the standard RTX 3090 allows it to speed up 3D rendering, 4K video production, CAD, and other tasks substantially. For 3D artists, animators, and designers using cutting edge real-time engines like OctaneRender or Redshift, the 3090 Ti is currently the fastest GPU on the market.
For extremely demanding workloads that can utilize the 24GB of VRAM and higher power limit, the RTX 3090 Ti justifies its price tag versus the older Titan RTX or Quadro GPUs. However, for gaming alone or lighter workloads, the cheaper RTX 3090 may be sufficient for most users. Overall, the 3090 Ti establishes itself as a new high-end option for creative professionals who require the absolute best performance in GPU-accelerated applications.
