Hoggle
The 3090Ti is an amazing card and still should allow you to play anything at max settings. The 4090 is also a great card so it  would depend on how much you would have to pay out of pocket to upgrade and if DLSS 3.0 is something you would really use.

Hoggle
A good question would be what games are you playing? Sometimes performance at the game level is about the same.

If you are someone who is getting into a long term game like Diablo 4 it’s worth seeing how the performance is on both.

Sajin
Get a 4090 for sure. The gigabyte rtx 4090 gaming oc comes with a 4 year warranty. I have the card in my system right now, and I've never had a problem with it.
 
A waterblock will void your warranty I believe on any asus, gigabyte, or msi 4090 model I believe as they don't allow you to put a block on for the best cooling, and then simply return it to stock for warranty rma'ing like evga would allow. 

Nereus
 
Thank you so much for the many responses! Lots of great and very valid points made going either way.
 
After the very recent issues with Gigabyte pcb weakness, I will be giving them a miss regardless (main concern is Gigabyte's repeated unwillingness to stand behind their products).
 
ASUS have decent products, but pity help you if anything goes wrong - you're on your own (even if they accept an RMA, they are likely to come up with some reason not to honor it).
 
MSI seem to have generally ok reviews, I've never owned MSI so I have no experience with them.
 
I'd also consider just going direct NVidia brand, providing there's a block for it.
 
Have to consider the warranty issue that many brands have with putting water blocks on their cards.
 
It doesn't appear anyone has released a retail water-blocked 4090 that isn't an AiO.. is that true?
 
Clearly the 4090 is a step up in performance, no argument there, but the 3090Ti is still a very powerful card in its own right.
 
Rendering will be significantly better with the 4090, so that's a definite advantage.
 
For gaming I mostly play BF2042 at present. There are improvements with the 4090, but 3090 Ti is still great, so not a game-changer for me (ba-dum pshht!)
 
At present using a 1440p 27" monitor, been waiting for something really good to upgrade to. I'm still waiting, lol. Maybe the ASUS PG27AQDM once it's been out in the wild for a while and assuming reviews are good.. expensive as heck though.
 
So.. conclusions.
 
Still a difficult decision, but after reading the various opinions here, and since I already have the 3090Ti cards and block, maybe I should use them. I'm also clinging to the fact that they are the last EVGA GPU and I'm really reluctant to go elsewhere. What also finally clinched it is that I was able to score a NVLink bridge recently (EVGA 100-2W-0130-LR), and although support outside of benching seems to be very limited, it would be kind of fun to open both 3090Ti cards and run them on air in SLI just to see what kind of benchmarks they can pull. Ultimately one of them would end up having a water block put on it and that would become part of my daily rig, and the other would be sold and the funds put aside for the next upgrade.
 
Looks like I'll skip the 4000 series altogether and reconsider when the 5000 series comes out. 
 
Again, thank you all for your input, much appreciated, definitely helped clarify things in my mind. 
 
 

Nereus
 
Thank you so much for the many responses! Lots of great and very valid points made going either way.
 
After the very recent issues with Gigabyte pcb weakness, I will be giving them a miss regardless (main concern is Gigabyte's repeated unwillingness to stand behind their products).
 
ASUS have decent products, but pity help you if anything goes wrong - you're on your own (even if they accept an RMA, they are likely to come up with some reason not to honor it).
 
MSI seem to have generally ok reviews, I've never owned MSI so I have no experience with them.
 
I'd also consider just going direct NVidia brand, providing there's a block for it.
 
Have to consider the warranty issue that many brands have with putting water blocks on their cards.
 
It doesn't appear anyone has released a retail water-blocked 4090 that isn't an AiO.. is that true?
 
Clearly the 4090 is a step up in performance, no argument there, but the 3090Ti is still a very powerful card in its own right.
 
Rendering will be significantly better with the 4090, so that's a definite advantage.
 
For gaming I mostly play BF2042 at present. There are improvements with the 4090, but 3090 Ti is still great, so not a game-changer for me (ba-dum pshht!)
 
At present using a 1440p 27" monitor, been waiting for something really good to upgrade to. I'm still waiting, lol. Maybe the ASUS PG27AQDM once it's been out in the wild for a while and assuming reviews are good.. expensive as heck though.
 
So.. conclusions.
 
Still a difficult decision, but after reading the various opinions here, and since I already have the 3090Ti cards and block, maybe I should use them. I'm also clinging to the fact that they are the last EVGA GPU and I'm really reluctant to go elsewhere. What also finally clinched it is that I was able to score a NVLink bridge recently (EVGA 100-2W-0130-LR), and although support outside of benching seems to be very limited, it would be kind of fun to open both 3090Ti cards and run them on air in SLI just to see what kind of benchmarks they can pull. Ultimately one of them would end up having a water block put on it and that would become part of my daily rig, and the other would be sold and the funds put aside for the next upgrade.
 
Looks like I'll skip the 4000 series altogether and reconsider when the 5000 series comes out. 
 
Again, thank you all for your input, much appreciated, definitely helped clarify things in my mind. 
 
 

seth89
what game even needs a 3090?