[nextpage title=”Introduction:”] After our test of the ROG RTX 3090 Ti Strix LC graphics card, there is no doubt that this KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF, for Hall Of Fame, was the graphics card we were hoping to get our hands on and now it’s here courtesy of GALAX/KFA2. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank them once again for giving us a sample every time a new NVIDIA graphics card is launched. The RTX 3090 Ti from the “HOF” series was officially announced a few weeks ago after the brand announced two “Limited Edition” models. A few days ago we introduced you to the GALAX HOF OC Lab Limited Edition purchased by one of our Discord community members. Today, it’s our turn to receive the commercial version, which is currently listed at LDLC for 2999.95 euros. This is the only version from GALAX that will be available in the shops.
As was the case with the RTX 3090, this is a card that is “out of the ordinary”. Both in size and price. NVIDIA is targeting this card at designers rather than gamers. The 24 GB of memory can only be used via a “Creator” approach with software such as OctaneRender, Blender, DaVinci Resolve and others. In addition, the price is lower than that of professional cards, which makes it even more attractive for this use. Now if you have a 4K screen or even an 8K model, this KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF will do the job perfectly. Now our goal is to overclock this card in the coming weeks ! [nextpage title=”KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF:”]
The architecture :
This KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF benefits of course from the current NVIDIA architecture, i.e. Ampere. This was intended to replace the Turing architecture of the GeForce RTX 20xx launched a little over four years ago. This RTX 3090 Ti, like its little sister the RTX 3090, benefits from a GA102 graphics chip built on an 8nm manufacturing process from Samsung. The chip hosts 10752 Cuda cores and boasts 78 RT-TFLOPs, 40 Shader-TFLOPs and 320 Tensor-TFLOPs. Our KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF has 24GB of 384-bit GDDR6X, which translates into a bandwidth of 1008GB/s. The TDP is much higher than the previous generation, with our example having a TDP of 480 watts. The box is still in the spirit of the Hall Of Fame range with the dark face on the left and the HOF logo.
The bundle :
Our sample is a HOF version which stands for “Hall Of Fame” and represents the top of the range models from GALAX/KFA2. The HOF series is always a big bundle and this KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF is no exception. KFA2 has adopted the principle of a top opening for this model, which allows the card to be revealed in a pre-molded foam block for optimum protection.
Once the top of the box is removed, the graphics card is revealed, as well as the imposing 4.3 inch (480 x 272 pixels) removable screen called “HOF Panel III”. This is not connected directly to the graphics card but via a USB port on your motherboard.
On the bottom level we find a quick installation guide, a pair of HOF gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on your graphics card and a bracket to place inside your case to prevent the card from sagging under its weight. Finally, in the last section, there are two USB cables, two PCIe 5.0 adapters and a user guide for the display. In short, a crazy bundle as we like them.
The cooling :
No doubt about it, this is a “HOF” model since it has all the visual codes of the series with a white PCB, white fairing and totally white fans. Aesthetically the card is a real success, KFA2 not having fallen into excess, with a front fairing and a backplate that give an impression of depth. It’s sober and efficient!
In terms of size, the card is impressive with its unusual dimensions of 352 x 160 x 68 mm, making it the largest RTX 3090 model we’ve ever seen. Needless to say, the card will occupy a width of 3 slots and if you want to buy it, make sure that the length is compatible with your case.
The front panel is equipped with three fans. The central one is slightly smaller (92mm) than the two outer ones (102mm) and has an RGB backlight. Each fan has 11 blades and the design has been revised to optimize static pressure while keeping noise levels low.
All three fans are equipped with fan stop technology, which allows them to idle when the GPU temperature is below 55°C, thus limiting noise.
Yes, some RGB :
The card benefits from some judiciously inserted backlighting. Three areas can be configured. The first is the outline of the central cooling system fan. The second is on the top edge where the Hall Of Fame inscription will be illuminated. Finally, on the back of the card, the HOF logo is also backlit. These little touches add to the card, without going full-on Christmas tree.
The RGB backlighting can be controlled via the HOF AI software, which we’ll come back to later in this article.
Dual BIOS and measurement points
The card benefits from two BIOS’s, which has become a common feature on high-end cards. You can choose between the Silence BIOS and the default Performance BIOS. The only difference between the two is fan speed and a frequency of 1860 MHz for the Silence and 1920 MHz for the Performance. Please note that via the HOF AI utility, you can activate 1-Click OC to switch to 1935 MHz. Both BIOS’s have a FAN STOP function.
The other very interesting feature is the presence of measurement points to read voltages. All you need is a multimeter.
The heatsink :
The heatsink is made of one solid block. As you can see from the pictures, its role is to dissipate the heat from the GPU, the memory chips on the front panel and part of the power supply stage. KFA2 has opted for eight 8mm heatpipes connected to a large heatsink and a steam chamber. The design is slightly different from that of the RTX 3090 HOF.
On the rear side there is an aluminum backplate which is used to stiffen the PCB and also to dissipate the memory chips and the power supply stages.
The connectors :
To power the board, there are two new 16-pin mini-connectors. HOF provides in its bundle two adapters to connect three 8-pin connectors. The three connectors each provide 3 x 150W. The card has three DisplayPort 1.4 video outputs and one HDMI 2.1 port.
As usual, a push-button switch is located on the bracket to adjust the three fans to their maximum speed when pressed. [nextpage title=”Specifications and PCB:”]
The technical specifications:
In terms of frequency, the base frequency is stated as 1560MHz and the boost is claimed to be 1920MHz. The 24GB of G-DDR6X memory runs at 1313MHz (1008GB/s) on a 384-bit bus. Our KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF benefits from a very good factory overclock compared to the NVIDIA Founders Edition card, which has a base frequency of 1560MHz and 1860MHz for the Boost frequency. The memory frequency is 1313 MHz. A quick look at GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. The GPU frequency is 1560 MHz, and the Boost frequency is 1920 MHz. Don’t forget that the latter will be higher during benchmarks depending on the quality of your chip and determined by GPU Boost 4.0. The memory has a frequency of 1313 MHz. We remind you how GPU Boost works here.
Let’s examine the PCB:
Let’s have a look at the PCB of our sample in detail. First of all, no surprise, the chip that equips our model is indeed the GA102 with a size of 628 mm². This is GALAX’s own “in-house” PCB, which is different from the one offered by NVIDIA on its Founders Edition board. Now let’s deal with the VRM, the Voltage Regulator Module. An XDPE10281B controller will supply the GPU with the right voltage and current. Our RTX 3090 Ti HOF has 24 + 4 phases for a total of 28, yes, 28 phases. The number of phases is often determined by the current requirement of the graphics chip. The more current the chip needs, the more phases it has.
KFA2 had the good idea to distribute the power phases on both sides of the GPU. There are twelve on the left and twelve on the right. This will avoid concentrating the heat produced by these phases on a single area of the PCB, and give a more homogeneous distribution. Such a choice should also allow a better stability in the voltage brought to the GPU. The mosfets are Infineon TDA21472. The mosfets are the elements to be kept cool and are often topped by a heat sink. They are the ones that will convert the direct current since our GPU does not work on 12 or 5 volts, but on a lower voltage often located around 1 volt.
The memory chips:
The memory supply stage consists of 4 phases. As far as the GDDR6X memory chips are concerned, there are 12 of them, 2 GB D8BZCs and they are manufactured by Micron. The exact reference is MT61K512M32KPA-21:U with an operating frequency of 1313 MHz. You should also know that this GPU uses ECC (Error Correction Code) memory which can detect and correct errors. This is not relevant for games, but is very important for professional tasks (simulations, 3D design…) where errors can lead to incorrect results.
The 4.3-inch HOF Panel III display:
The bundle includes a removable 4.3 inch (480 x 272 pixels) screen called “HOF Panel III”. This is not connected directly to the graphics card but via a USB port on your motherboard. Two cables are included in the bundle to either connect the USB directly to your motherboard PCB or via a USB connector on the external connectors. You can either place it in your case with the integrated stand or place it on the edge of your graphics card with two magnets.
By default, once the screen is connected to your motherboard, it displays a nice promotional video. If you want to set up the display by changing the video, choosing a photo or enabling monitoring, you will need to download the latest version of the HOF AI software. [nextpage title=”The test setup:”] As we said in the introduction, we have just done a complete upgrade of our test setup to Alder Lake, DDR5 and Windows 11. This is the first card we will officially test on this new configuration. Of course, all our previous cards have been retested on this configuration in order to update our various graphics.
- Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme
- Processor: Intel Alder Lake i7-12700KF
- Memory : 32 GB Corsair Platinum RGB 5200 CL38 DDR5
- Graphics Card: RTX 3090 Ti HOF (drivers 512.95)
- Cooling system: ROG Ryujin II 360
- SSD : Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB + EKWB heatsink
- Power supply: Corsair AX1600i
- Operating system: Windows 11 64 bits
- Display: Asus PG27UQ
Our test protocol :
All cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimization. For the various benchmarks, both synthetics and games, we will opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions depending on the card’s performance. Here, with this high-end model, we will only use 2160p resolution. As you can see, we have switched to Windows 11 and we have enabled the “ReSize BAR” in the BIOS as you can see in these screenshots. Now that you know everything about our test configuration, it’s time to start! [nextpage title=”Synthetic benchmarks: “] Our first set of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions but are also very interesting to compare different GPUs. We will therefore focus on benchmarks from the 3DMark series. We will test the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- DirectX Raytracing
- Mesh Shader
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, which is one of the most used benchmarks today. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo which doesn’t add anything to the final score and prolongs the benchmark (unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is of course the latest one.
This is the first benchmark we’ve run with this RTX 3090 Ti and as we suspected, it manages to catch up with the RX 6900 XT and overtake it by a short head. But since our test of Powercolor’s RX 6950 XT Liquid Devil, that’s the new king of this benchmark.
The same is true of Fire Strike Ultra, although here it is the RX 6900 XT and RX 6950 XT that take the top two spots.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme :
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is done in 1440p, it is especially special because it uses DirectX 12. It consists of two graphics tests and a CPU test. As with Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These first two benchmarks are provided by UL Benchmark.
The performance obtained in Time Spy is always fairly representative of what we will get in games. Here we can see that the KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF is in the top three. So we should end up with fairly close results in the games we test.
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, our sample of the day scores 10617 points and beats AMD’s RX 6950 XT for the first time.
3DMark DirectX Raytracing :
UL Benchmarks has added a new test to its series of benchmarks to measure Ray Tracing performance. The idea will be to use the 3DMark DirectX Raytracing test to compare the performance of dedicated Ray Tracing hardware to graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA. The 3DMark DirectX Raytracing test is designed to make Ray Tracing the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the entire scene is traced and drawn in a single pass. The test result will depend entirely on the performance of the Ray Tracing. This makes it easy to measure and compare the performance of different cards.
The advantage of Ray Tracing is still for team green, with the RTX 3090 Ti breaking the 60-point barrier for the first time with a total of 61.43 points for this sample.
3DMark Mesh Shader:
Here is the new test we added to the synthetic benchmarks: Mesh Shader. We added it because it is supported by AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture and therefore our RX 6000. It allows us to analyze the level of performance of the GPUs concerning this functionality. As a reminder, it allows to exploit more complex calculations at the geometry level, in a more flexible way, for each meshlet . The result displayed is the one with the Mesh Shaders active.
Our KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF scores 720 points, almost as much as the Strix LC but leaving the other models far behind.
[nextpage title=”Gaming performance: “] We decided to select five games because they seem to be representative enough. We opted for DirectX11, DirectX12 and Vulkan with the following games:
- The Division 2 (DirectX 12)
- Borderlands 3 (DirectX 12)
- Red Dead Redemption II (Vulkan)
- Far Cry 6 (DirectX 12)
- Watch Dogs: Legion (DirectX 12)
We have chosen to use the benchmarks integrated in these different games. Why did we do this? Simply to allow you to compare your results with ours if you also have a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought that seemed relevant to us and that will allow you to compare your results with ours. As we mentioned on page 4 of this article, we have enabled the Resizable Bar in the BIOS, which is supported by both NVIDIA and AMD cards. Finally, we have opted for 2160p resolution only, which is what you would expect from this card. As we don’t have an 8K screen at our disposal, it is impossible for us to test it in these conditions.
The Division 2:
The Division 2 will be tested under DirectX 12. As far as the graphics settings are concerned, they will be set to “ultra” mode with vertical synchronization disabled.
First game and the trend seen in the synthetic benchmarks is confirmed in The Division 2. The 2160p performance is excellent and soars to an average of 97 FPS. Note that this is one of the least demanding games in our panel.
Borderlands 3:
For the second game, we switch to Borderlands 3. The graphics options are set to “Brutal“. Borderlands 3 is quite demanding and this choice of settings has a strong impact on the FPS. This is a game that is often mentioned in new graphics card announcements.
The performance continues to be excellent in Borderlands 3 with an average of 81.2 FPS. So we’re looking at a 17.5% gain over the RTX 3090.
Red Dead Redemption 2:
Third game and not the least, Red Dead Redemption II on PC. The advantage of this new opus is to offer the possibility to test the integrated benchmark under Vulkan. We opt for the graphics options in “ultra“.
Third and not least, RDR2 offers the possibility to test the integrated Vulkan benchmark. Here too the RTX 3090 Ti stands out from its competitors by a wide margin.
Far Cry 6:
The latest game we are adding to this section as it supports DXR as well as the SFR offered by AMD. We will also find it on the next page. For our benchmarks, we have opted for ” ultra” graphics quality. 
Even though our game report showed an advantage for the RX 6000 cards, our KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF did very well once again with an average of 91 FPS in 2160p.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Last but not least, Watch Dogs Legion will also be used for our tests with Ray Tracing. For our benchmarks, we opted for a “very high” graphics quality.
This latest game confirms the trend with an average of 90 FPS, confirming the total domination of the 3090Ti in 4K.
Average Game:
For the game average, we chose the RTX 3080 10 GB as our reference. The other cards score either higher or lower depending on their performance against this model.
The trend and gap we saw in Time Spy was fully confirmed in-game. The RTX 3090 Ti proved to be a formidable performer and opened up a significant gap to the other 2160p cards. Only the RX 6950 XT still manages to hold its own. We’re almost disappointed that we don’t have an 8K screen to test some games in this resolution. The arrival of the new drivers may also bring a gain in FPS but we had no choice but to use the new drivers to run our RTX 3090 Ti. As usual, we will update our charts in the next few weeks.
[nextpage title=”Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR performance:”] Let’s now take a look at the four games we have selected that support Ray Tracing and DLSS. This will allow us to judge the impact of these two technologies on FPS. As you can see, some games support first generation DLSS and others support 2.0. We have also added Far Cry 6 which supports DirectX Ray Tracing and AMD’s SFR but is still compatible with NVIDIA graphics cards. The four DirectX 12 games we will be testing with Ray Tracing or DirectX Ray Tracing and DLSS or SFR are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Watch Dogs: Legion
- Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition
- Far Cry 6
As in the previous tests, we will opt for a 2160p resolution for the use of Ray Tracing. Why do we do this? Simply because it allows us to be aware of the contribution of DLSS when FPS drops with the use of Ray Tracing.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
The first one we’re adding to this comparison that supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 1.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and only one level of DLSS. For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and DLSS enabled.
Even with Ray Tracing enabled, our RTX 3090 Ti performs perfectly with an average of 68 FPS. Enabling DLSS gives a frame rate boost to 93 FPS at 2160p.
Watch Dogs Legion:
The second game, Watch Dogs Legion, supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. It is one of the most demanding games of the moment. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance). For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, “high” Ray Tracing and “balanced” DLSS.
The Ray Tracing in Watch Dogs Legion makes all the cards suffer, including our RTX 3090 Ti! As a reminder, we were getting an average of 90 FPS which drops to 47 when Ray Tracing is activated. Fortunately, DLSS in “balanced” mode comes to the rescue and raises this average to 85 FPS.
Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition:
Third game and supports DLSS 2.0. We have devoted a report to it. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance). For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, ‘ high ‘ Ray Tracing and ‘ quality ‘ DLSS.
Once again, the combination of Ray Tracing and DLSS gave our sample of the day an average of 46.3 FPS at 2160p. The use of DLSS will allow our current sample to go well over the 60 FPS mark with an average of 75.9 FPS.
Far Cry 6:
The latest game we are adding to this section as it supports DXR as well as the SFR offered by AMD. For our benchmarks, we chose Ultra graphics quality, we enabled both DRX and FSR in ” quality ” mode for all three resolutions: 1080p, 1440p and 2160p. 
This is a visual change in our graphics, since here, with FSR, both NVIDIA and AMD cards can benefit from this FPS gain. In Far Cry 6, our RTX 3090 Ti gets an average of 77 FPS with Ray Tracing enabled. As a reminder, without Ray Tracking, the average was 91 FPS. FSR brings a gain that pushes this average to 108 FPS.
[nextpage title=”Thermals, Power Consumption and Accoustics : “]
Thermals:
In order to measure temperatures, we opted for the Superposition stress test in Extreme mode. We opted for three 5-minute runs with a 10-minute interval between each test. We took advantage of this benchmark to record the power consumption of the graphics card for the table above. In order to know the temperature in Idle, after completing the three loops of the stress test, we let the card rest for 20 minutes before reading the temperature. It should be noted that most cards have “0 dBa” technology and therefore the fans cut out below a certain temperature, often between 50 and 55°C. This means that it takes longer to dissipate the heat after a period of stress testing or gaming. A card that does not have this technology will be noisier than others at rest. A reminder: our temperature readings are taken in Open-Air. In a closed case, the cards will necessarily be hotter.
As we expected, thanks to the excellent cooling system of KFA2, the card hardly heats up at all! The temperature never exceeded 72°C and the memory temperature is also excellent, as overclocking tests will show. Once the card is no longer in use, the temperature drops rapidly and the fans shut down so as not to produce any noise. This is the second time we have tested this cooling and its efficiency is confirmed once again !
Accoustics:
For noise measurement, we use a sound level meter placed at 40 cm from our graphics card. All other components that may make noise (fans and liquid circuit pump) are disabled.
Noise levels are excellent in comparison with consumption and temperatures. In short, KFA2 is perfectly in control and we love it!
Power consumption (full configuration) :
We use a wattmeter to measure the power consumption on the output of our power supply. Our modular power supply is a CORSAIR AX1600i. The result we offer you is the average of the total power consumption of our configuration. Only the graphics card changes between each reading. It is therefore easy to calculate the difference between each graphics card.
Boom, there you go, that’s to be expected with Ampere. Here, during our stress test, the power consumption explodes with an average of 577 watts. NVIDIA recommends a power supply of 850 watts when using a configuration equipped with an RTX 3090 Ti. Finally, when we see this consumption, we say to ourselves that the temperatures are really excellent! For the next test, we will set up our PMD Power Measurement Device in order to be able to isolate only the GPU’s consumption. [nextpage title=”Overclocking: “]
Overclocking via GPU Tweak :
Over to the latest version of the GPU Tweak software. This is the overclocking software designed by Asus but which is compatible with other brands of GPUs. The software is really well designed but you will have to go switch to advanced mode to have access to all the settings. Of course, you can also use the KFA2 AI software that we presented here.
In-house protocol:
To test our overclocking, we will first focus on the Time Spy benchmark. Let’s get started! We choose a maximum fan speed for the cooler, raise the power limit to the maximum, i.e. to 107% and off we go! At first, we only push the GPU frequency until the benchmark is no longer running. Once we have a stable GPU frequency, we move on to increasing the memory frequency. So with a boost frequency of 2080MHz (max GPU-Z 2220MHz) and the memory at 1400MHz we ran the benchmarks. As you can see, the temperatures remain excellent but the fans are also running at maximum.
The overclocking scores, despite the aircooling system, are slightly better than those obtained with the ROG RTX 3090 Ti Strix LC on a liquid-cooled solution. In short, we can’t wait to get the tools to unlock the voltages and start pushing this KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF. [nextpage title=”The last word:”]
An “ultimate” RTX 3090 Ti, but for whom ?
Well, let’s talk about the gaming side of things right away, which for us, is not really the focus of this RTX 3090 Ti.” Ah, but the performance is excellent in 4K though? ” Sure, but if you have to calculate the price/FPS, the RTX 3080 Ti is much more interesting. So now, if you have a 4K screen and an ultra-high-end configuration, you can of course find interest in this card. At least for the more fortunate… So who is this card for? NVIDIA is offering it as an upgrade from an RTX 2080, 2080 Ti or even the RTX Titan. The interest of the RTX 3090 Ti lies mainly in its 24 GB of memory. These will not be used for gaming at all, but will be used in applications. Most of the time, these are professional applications that mainly require the GPU engine. NVIDIA is of course offering a Founders Edition which will be priced at 2249 Euros.
KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF
Now this card has a real interest for us since it is cut out for extreme overclocking and that’s what we want from it! We are waiting to receive the unlock tools in order to make the most of this card. The idea is to prepare all our Alder Lake configurations for a move to LN2. This KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF is already doing a great job from the start and the excellent cooling system offered by KFA2 has a lot to do with it. The factory overclocking potential is already appreciable compared to the Founders Edition frequencies, but there is still room for improvement. As you can see on the overclocking page, we were able to push our card again and it pushes just as hard or even a little better than our ROG RTX 3090 Ti Strix LC under AIO.
We liked:
- The ultimate card for those who want the best for 4K/8K
- A great alternative to pro cards for designers
- Even better performance than the RTX 3090
- A very well thought-out power supply with quality components
- Excellent facrtory overclock!
- GDDR6 memory is still as docile as ever when overclocking
- Excellent cooling system combined with low noise levels
- The presence of two BIOS’s
- The availability of measuring points for voltage measurement
- Tools and BIOS for extreme overclocking
We would have liked :
- The price, but that was to be expected.
- The thermal pads which tend to get damaged during disassembly
With this KFA2 RTX 3090 Ti HOF, KFA2 offers us the best and final card of the RTX 3000 generation. It represents the best of what is currently available if you ignore the power consumption and the price. However, it exists, and KFA2 continues to pamper overclockers who dream of breaking records with this Hall Of Fame version. Being an overclocker and having always taken this factor into account in my reviews, it is without any hesitation that I credit it with a “crush”! Now we just have to wait a few weeks to put it under LN2 and try to get some scores.