ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity Graphics Card Overview
Taking a first look at the RTX 3090 Trinity Graphics Card I was actually surprised at how small the card is. The official dimensions are 317.8mm x 120.7mm x 58mm which actually makes it shorter and actually not as wide as the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio we reviewed last week. This is actually great as it conforms to a typical graphics card size. I was a bit scared when I saw the reference RTX 3090 with its triple slot design. This would make the card unusable in many cases including most vertical graphics card implementations. This is a typical dual-slot card and we’ll get into thickness in a just a bit.
As far as the design of the card goes I would say it is pretty basic. The top of the card is mainly covered by the three black cooling fans and a sort of gunmetal-colored shroud. The center fan says Zotac on it while the other two have the Zotac Gaming logo on them. The fans that Zotac are using feature their new 11-blade design which increases airflow by 10% over their previous design.
The fans sit atop a large aluminum heatsink array. The heatsinks are grouped into three groups with heatpipes connecting them. The heatpipes make direct contact with the GPU for better heat transfer. The heatpipe layout has actually been improved since the last generation as well. You’ll also notice metal around the edge of the card, this is a metal front plate which will help with rigidity and structural integrity.
Flipping over to the back of the card we have a full-cover metal backplate. It has a Zotac Gaming logo which will light up with RGB lighting when the card is powered on.
On the top-edge of the card you’ll find another Zotac Gaming, which will also light up with RGB lighting. Right above it you have two 8-pin PCI-Express power connections.
One thing you will find on the RTX 3090 that you won’t find on other RTX 30 series cards is an NVLink connection. NVIDIA basically killed off NVLink with the 30 series as only the RTX 3090 supports it.
As far as expansion slots go you have three DisplayPort 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.1. From this view we can see that the card is just over 2 slots, probably 2.3 slots.
