EVGA RTX 3090 Kingpin Edition graphics card is based around new generation of ray trace-enabled NVIDIA Ampere A100 ASIC and Micron GDDR6X DRAM.

With ampere its important to know that the clocks you see arent what you are getting. The best way i can describe it is there is Commanded clock and there is actual clock. Most of your tools and utilities will reflect commanded clock. There are 3 pieces of software at the time of writing this specific article that read actual clocks. Thermspy, Ampere OC Tool, 3DMark, and Nvidia Inspector are the ones that work. For simplicities sake id use thermspy or Ampere OC Tool as it reads both values. 3DMark only reads actual and Nvidia Inspector is not publicly avaiable.

For voltage monitoring purposes this card has traditional EVGA ProbeIt, which is a 10-pin 2mm pitch PH-type connector near the top PCB edge. Pin definition as below:

ProbeIt pinout is same since the GTX 680 era, so you still can use your ProbeIt setup if you had it done before. The only difference is replacement of +3.3V probe point with +1.8V rail instead. This I/O voltage is used as main logic level on RTX series graphic cards now, providing power for BIOS, display outputs and various onboard auxiliary logic. Also same helpful label with voltage names is located on the bottom side of PCB near each ProbeIt connector pin to aid connection.

Just like all previous KINGPIN Edition cards, 3090 KPE has three independent different BIOS ROMs and the corresponding switch to select between them. Default configuration with switch locked at right (towards power plugs), setting on NORMAL BIOS position. BIOS difference comparison between the three is presented in V-Tune On Board Switches.

LN2 BIOS switch position disable temperature protection by hardware. This is a crucial feature to enable for LN2-type cooling, but totally unnecessary(and even dangerous) for watercooling/aircooling use. Using LN2 BIOS position is not recommended for daily use, but available for benchmarking purposes.

If you want to enjoy maximum fan speeds that 90.02.30.00.79 version provide, you can flash it into “Normal” or “OC” position instead, to maintain thermal protection mechanisms and safety. Any of the three BIOSes can be flashed with unofficial KPE BIOS ROMs and operated independently.

BIOS can be flashed using Download:NVFlash from TechPowerUp. You need version 5.567.0 or newer.

Card is already shipped with three different BIOSes, available for download as backup dumps:

Download:Normal BIOS, Version 94.02.42.00.0B This BIOS is stock baseline

Download:OC BIOSOC BIOS, Version 94.02.42.00.10 This one is similar to Normal but with Higher TDP target limit

Download:LN2 BIOSLN2 BIOS, Version 94.02.42.00.0F This one is similar to OC but with Higher TDP target limit

Current normal BIOS provided above (as shipped with card) with maxed out 144% power limit target already allow GPU to reach maximum everyday frequency without need of special VBIOS or risks involved flashing it.

However, if you want to do benchmarking with extreme cooling, you might want to get purpose built custom ROM from link below. Keep in mind, this BIOS is not for everyday use.

Download:XOC unofficial BIOS, Version 90.02.17.40.88 XOC overclocking version for RTX 3090 KINGPIN card.

This archive is password protected to ensure you have read this guide carefully and agree with the risks involved of flashing custom binary into your KINGPIN. Password from the archive is ipromisenottoRMAthiscard.

XOC BIOS have next limitations to restrict its use only for benchmarking purposes:

• All fans are 100% speed (“jet engine mode”).
• Fan speed curves or adjustment in PX1 is disabled.
• Temp target is removed.
• Power limit is not there anymore.
• Card ID is generic in this BIOS (meaning you need to use nvflash with -6 parameter to flash into this BIOS or restore original BIOS).

There is secret Classified tool available to play with various onboard KINGPIN RTX settings for maximum performance tweaking.

Uncheck “Auto” checkbox to unleash the beast. Keep an eye on temperatures! Power consumption and stress to GPU is increased exponentially from elevated voltage, instead of linear for clock frequency OC only.

NOTE: Do NOT set anything over 1200 mV for any type of near ambient cooling. Even with chilled watercooling and antifreeze your GPU temperatures under load will be positive and giving more juice to poor chip will only throttle it. It’s easy to see by lack of performance scaling (such as 3Dmark score / game fps).

When you use a tool, it’s a good idea not to mess with voltage control in Precision X1. Using multiple programs to control card settings can easily corrupt driver settings and create havoc. Great example of “Too many cooks in the kitchen”, because different applications do not communicate to each other, to gracefully apply settings.

This tool applies settings to hardware directly and settings will stay until the card is power cycled (complete shutdown). If you need reset to default settings – just power cycle the system, that will clear any classified settings. You do NOT need to keep tool open to maintain settings, they will stay set, until the card is power cycled.

NOTE: For LN2 benchmarking make sure to disable NVVDD OCP and enable LN2 VRM mode settings!

Download: Classified Tool

There is also a modified Version of this tool. The only difference is you can send l2C commands.

Download: Classified Tool Modified

Main article: Clocks

Ampere OC Tool

Download: Ampere OC Tool

Thermspy

Download: Thermspy