INNO3D RTX 4090 iChill X3 OC Review

A Closer Look

That aside, let’s talk about the iCHILL X3 because it’s actually a very good-looking card. I’ll be honest, there are some similarities in the design between it and offerings from ASUS, with the iCHILL branding, which when lit up, actually looks pretty damn good. Now like all RTX 4090-based cards, it’s not small but is on the smaller end of the scale when compared to other 4090 cards on the market. Coming in at 334mm long, 148mm high and 63mm thick so it’s a 3-slot card, and the cooler doesn’t protrude over that either.

In terms of the overall design. It’s plastic, and normally, I’d hate on that, but with the mixture of textures, the mix between the black and small amounts of grey and the overall design of the shroud, it works. It’s no worse than more established and more expensive models on the market, and the almost all-black design means it will fit into your system perfectly.

Now, like all RTX 4090’s, it’s a heavy boy, coming in at 2335 grams, which is the heaviest 4090 we’ve had in our offices, but with weight, also comes stability, and the iCHILL X3 really does feel like a solidly built card which you’d expect if you’re spending upwards of £1600, which at the time of filming this, finding stock, along with other 4090’s is still proving somewhat difficult, but being a custom card, as part of their high-end range, you’d expect it to cost more than the likes of a reference-based or Founders card.

Now, as the name suggests, it has a triple fan design, which measures around 92mm each and almost float within the frame along with featuring both outer fans operating in an anticlockwise rotation for reduced turbulence and superior cooling. This is something we’re definitely seeing become more common lately and you’d like to think that INNO3D have done their own R&D to see the benefits of doing it.

In terms of RGB, the iCHILL isn’t for the fainthearted. It has a couple of glossy panels scattered on the front, of which one wraps around to the top of the card and is pretty in your face, but I like it. Not only is it bright, but it’s also quite unique in style and placement, and by default operates as a rainbow wave. Of course, you get full control of it with your motherboard’s RGB software, or you can turn it off completely depending on your style.

Along the top is what INNO3D call the graphics card stand, which I think is maybe lost in translation because it’s actually more of a support bar which stems from the middle of the card, all the way back to the top of the I/O bracket, so instead of the support only being from the I/O which screws into the PCB, you now get an extra piece of rigidity, which is also why I assume this card don’t come with some kind of support stand as we’ve seen from ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI in the past. The one slightly strange thing is that you may struggle with screwing the card down into your case, due to the length of the screws, as no longer ones come included with the card.

Around the back, there’s a full-length backplate with a stylistic cutout to extract hot air away from the GPUs core. The backplate, along with the whole cooler spans well passed the PCB and has the same triangular pattern that we see on the RGB elements which also is similar to the triangular design that Corsair has been using on their cases for a little while now. Along with the style elements, the backplate is fairly thick and will assist with sag, along with that top bracket.

In terms of branding, the fans incorporate the iCHILL branding and logo, along with the same iCHILL branding on the backplate, and the GEFORCE RTX logos on the backplate and along the top of the card, while the RGB on the top gives more iCHILL branding once in operation.

For power, like all over RTX 4090’s on the market, it’s a 12+4-pin connector, of which a lot of chatter has been going on about melting cables and connectors, but we’ve not experienced any issues so far, and general talk within the industry could come down to multiple adapters made in various ways, along with user error. This card, it comes with an adapter, which includes 3 x 8-pins to the 12+4 pin connector, unlike other cards that have 4 x 8-pin connectors. This is more than enough as this card has a 450-watt total board power so 3 connectors is more than enough.

On the IO, as mentioned it will take up 3 physical slots inside your case, and the cooler matches with that, without protruding out beyond 3 slots. Two of those slots have ventilation to assist with cooling while connection-wise, we have three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and a single HDMI 2.1a port, much like we’ve seen on all other RTX 4090’s so far.