Nvidia's unreleased quad slot RTX 4090 Ti behemoth smiles for the camera
After the release of the RTX 4090, we expected Nvidia to eventually follow up with a Ti model unleashing the full capabilities of the AD102 GPU. Though the RTX 4090 Ti was never confirmed, pictures of a large and unique quad slot cooler appeared as far back as October 2022, indicating Nvidia was at least preparing for the eventuality that a mammoth cooler was required for some kind of GPU.
The since-deleted picture comes from a Reddit poster (via Videocardz). I mean, just look at it. That's the kind of cooler that looks like it could handle a 600W TDP. And it appears to be a complete card. Given the previously leaked design of the cooling baseplate with its unique perpendicular PCB, surely most of the design and engineering work has been done?
The RTX 4090 Ti was reportedly canceled, but that doesn't mean Nvidia can't un-cancel it. We'll never know what discussions took place deep inside Nvidia. Perhaps melting 16-pin connectors spooked it, maybe it was an unneeded backup plan in case the Radeon RX 7900 XTX took the crown, or maybe Nvidia decided to divert AD102 GPUs to higher margin professional products.
Given Nvidia has what appears to be an all but ready RTX 4090 Ti variant on its hands, the question is: will it go ahead and release it? My guess is yes, it will. The RTX 3090 Ti was released 18 months after the RTX 3090 and just six months before the RTX 4090. Given that we're probably a year away from the release of the RTX 50-series, a mid-2024 launch is highly probable.
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