September-bound Lovelace GeForce RTX 40 series heats up with alleged 850 W TGP for flagship AD102 GPU and 1,500 W PSU requirement

Back in January there were some rumors about how power hungry the upcoming GeForce RTX 40 series “Lovelace” graphics cards from Nvidia were going to be. At the time, a power requirement of up to 600 W was mentioned in relation to the expected RTX 4090 and RTX 4090 Ti, which would require desktop PC builders and gamers to be in possession of a 1,200 W PSU. With double the power requirement, this would give enough headroom for the boards to hit peak performance while making sure the rest of the system still had enough juice to run. However, it appears that already high figure has been raised – to an electricity-bill-soaring and environment-sweltering 850 W.

Two noted graphics cards leakers, Greymon55 and kopite7kimi, have been discussing the rumors, which were set off by the former’s claim that the TGP ranges for flagship boards utilizing the AD102 GPU were 450 W, 650 W, and 850 W. The tipster wasn’t sure if this was three different Lovelace models or one model with three TGP levels and also mentioned that “there may be some deviation”. Bearing in mind, the GeForce RTX 3090 needs 350 W to get on with its business, and with so many rumors stating Lovelace will offer 2x-2.5x the performance of Ampere, then there will be the additional and inevitable higher power requirement.

So, 700-800 W for the top-end cards with the AD102 GPU doesn’t seem that unlikely, and this has been lent further weight by kopite7kimi. The second leaker exclaimed that although the 850 W TGP figure was a rumor, they had heard that 450 W, 600 W, and 800 W levels had been associated with the RTX 4080, RTX 4080 Ti, and RTX 4090, respectively. There is the reminder included that nothing has been confirmed, but with both respected sources mentioning around 800 W, then a 1,200 W PSU won’t be enough and even a 1,500 W PSU could leave an AD102-based board like an RTX 4090 Ti not quite hitting its full potential.

Greymon55 also mentions that Lovelace should be released in September, and there will likely be plenty of leaks in the meantime that offer a better idea of the reality of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 series. As for Team Red fans, the same leaker also says that the TGP for AMD’s Navi 31 GPU-based SKUs will be substantial but fortunately not on the same levels as the Lovelace rivals from Team Green.

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