Want an RTX 3090? Nvidia to hand them out for free next week

Nvidia’s Graphics Technology Conference (GTC) is coming up, and this time around, there’ll be more to gain than just a lot of insight into the company’s findings and plans.

Nvidia announced that during the conference, it will be giving out GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards signed by CEO Jensen Huang.

This year’s GTC starts on March 21 and will last until March 24. A large portion of the event will be virtual, but the company has also prepared some in-person workshops in San Jose, California. At the event, Nvidia is going to be giving away its current flagship graphics card, the RTX 3090. It’s unclear whether participants need to attend both the physical event and virtual keynotes, but that is likely the case.

At least eight Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards will be up for grabs in a raffle among the participants of GTC 2022, all of them signed by the CEO of Nvidia himself. Considering that the RTX 3090 Ti is set to launch just after the event, it would make sense for Nvidia to give out that card, but the RTX 3090 is a cheaper prize that will still offer fantastic performance.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 comes with 10,496 CUDA cores, a boost clock of 1.7GHz, and a whopping 24GB of GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit memory bus. The upcoming RTX 3090 Ti will outperform its predecessor, although, at these performance margins, we’re talking about improving something that is already fantastic. The new flagship will feature the full GA102 GPU and 24GB of 21Gbps GDDR6X memory, and will most likely be very power-hungry. Some leaks point to future RTX 3090 Ti owners needing a humongous power supply exceeding 1,000 watts.

The conference has a strong focus on A.I. technology that utilizes computer graphics. There are also mentions of machine learning, autonomous machines and vehicles, data science, and Nvidia’s Omniverse. The company plans to cover its major breakthroughs and talk about new computing platforms during the main keynote on March 22.

Nvidia has shared images of Jensen Huang signing the graphics card boxes (later published by PCWatch), so although we don’t know how many exactly will be given out, it’s confirmed that Nvidia has prepared the prizes for the few lucky winners. As for the RTX 3090 Ti, it’s most likely launching on March 29, so Nvidia will have a busy end of the month.