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Step aside Voodoo 5 6000, there’s a new monster GPU in town so over the top you can’t help but admire the audacity of it. (As a onetime functional Voodoo 5 6000 owner, I take exception to this statement – Ed) EVGA has released its most premium Ampere GPU, the RTX 3090 Ti Kingpin. As you may know, the Kingpin moniker is reserved for the company’s extreme overclocking GPU. It’s also designed in coordination with overclocker Vince “KingPin” Lucido. EVGA’s “Kingpin” cards usually include premium cooling as well, which is part of its overclocking pedigree. This card however, comes with a lot more than just a fancy cooler. It better, given that this sucker costs $2,500. This makes it the most expensive Ampere GPU you can buy from a vendor (as opposed to a scalper).
To begin: The Kingpin RTX 3090 includes an EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 P2 PSU, which has an 80+ Platinum rating. The power supply alone costs $500 if purchased separately. One issue though is the Kingpin GPU has dual 16-pin power connectors. As you may recall, this is what GPUs in the future will use, as the new standard allows one cable to pump as much as 600W into a GPU. Since the power supply only has standard cables, EVGA has built a custom bracket for it. It’s called the EVGA PowerLink 52u, and it requires five eight-pin power cables. Those plug into one side, and the other side plugs into the dual 16-pin ports on the GPU.
PowerLink 52U for 3090 Ti KINGPIN 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Np7z1TDAPd
— Jacob Freeman (@EVGA_JacobF) July 12, 2022
Moving along to cooling, this is a “hybrid” cooler, means it uses both air and liquid. There’s a single fan on the GPU to keep the VRMs and memory cool. Meanwhile, the GPU is cooled by an all-in-one (AIO) closed-loop cooler with a 360mm radiator. EVGA doesn’t sell a product like this, so this seems like a custom one-off cooler. EVGA says it’s an Asetek model, which is a ubiquitous name in the cooling world.
If that’s not enough, there’s also a built-in OLED display. The 176 x 48 pixel panel can be flipped up or down on the edge of the GPU. This lets it be viewed regardless of whether it’s installed horizontally or vertically. It lets you monitor clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, “and more” according to EVGA. It also supports nine animated GIFs; three are user-uploaded along with six presets. Those presets are most likely EVGA logos, as shown below.
Of course, as an overclocking card there’s plenty of hardware for that too. It features a triple BIOS, so you can choose from normal, overclocked, or LN2 mode. There’s also has integrated headers that let you monitor voltages in real-time, which is a necessity for extreme overclocking. It also includes the company’s new “e-leash.” This is a cable that connects the GPU to part of the chassis to prevent GPU sag.
As for the card itself, it looks like a high-quality unit. It features a 14-layer custom PCB, and 24 power phases. The backplate is all-metal and die-cast for extra rigidity. Interestingly EVGA lists the boost clock at a conservative 1,950MHz. That’s barely higher than Nvidia reference design’s 1.86GHz boost clock. Still, those kind of specs don’t matter much as this GPU is made for overclocking. And we mean serious overclocking. For example, a Team EVGA overclocker recently took the 3090 Ti Kingpin to almost 3GHz on LN2. To do this they had to use dual 1600W power supplies, if you can believe that. In doing so the GPU set various world records in Engine and 3DMark benchmarks.
Overall, this is a GPU for a very, very small crowd. Combine it with a truly extreme overclocking motherboard and you’ll be in “price of a used car” territory in no time. It’s obviously not for everyone, but if you’re into this sort of thing, Kingpin seems like an appropriate title for such an over-the-top GPU package.
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