Nvidia RTX 40 Series graphics cards now look an even better buy

Nvidia's new RTX 40 Series GPUs will power the best graphics cards we'll see in the year to come, and we're impressed: after experiencing the new DLSS 3.0 graphics upgrade, our minds were well and truly blown. But many potential purchasers were worried by rumours of less exciting explosions, such as PSUs breaking under the load of enormously power hungry processors. According to Nvidia, though, they needn't worry.

Nvidia has posted a new FAQ on its support website that addresses all the key concerns people might have – concerns including how many watts the GPUs will draw, how durable their connectors are and whether they're compatible with existing PSUs. The short version? If you've got a good quality PSU and it meets the minimum specs, everything should be absolutely fine.

What does your gaming PC need to run an RTX 40?

The wattage depends on the card you go for: the RTX 4090 has a TGP of 450W, the 4080 16GB draws 320W and the 4080 12GB wants 285W. Based on that, Nvidia has set the minimum PSU wattages for those cards at 850W, 750W and 700W respectively, which is pretty much the same as the minimum wattage for RTX 30s.

Another big question was about the 8-pin to PCIe Gen 5 16-pin adapters, and Nvidia has answered that too. According to Nvidia the adapters will ""translate the 8-pin plug status to the correct sideband signals according to the PCIe Gen 5 (ATX 3.0) spec" and will tell the GPU whether three or four 8-pin connectors are connected. If all four are in use, it'll unlock more power for overclocking.

The FAQ does a good job of addressing the key concerns would-be purchases might have, and as a rule of thumb if your rig already meets the spec for RTX 30s then it should be just fine for the new generation too. It looks like the only worry left is how to pay for the next-gen GPUs, which aren't exactly cheap: the RTX 4090 will be $1,499 in the US and £1,649 in the UK (assuming Sterling doesn't fall even further against the dollar). Even at those prices, stock is expected to sell out quickly.