A renderer of NVIDIA’s upcoming GeForce RTX 30 Series Ampere Gaming Graphics Cards in its Founders Edition reference design. (Image via Reddit user u / dertpert88)
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 ‘Ampere’ Gaming graphics cards are less than a month away from their official unveiling, and the latest rumors now indicate that the green team has decided to increase the memory specifications of its entire lineup for next generation, including the Geforce RTX 3080 Ti & the GeForce RTX 3080.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 ‘Ampere’ Gaming Graphics Cards Launched in 24 GB, 20 GB, 10 GB Variants, GDDR6X Memory Marked Too Good
Recently, we covered in an exclusive report that NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards based on the Ampere GPU architecture will get a huge boost in terms of total memory capacity. Now the latest information from a leaker, Wjm47196 (Via Videocardz) seems to indicate that this is certainly the case and we will receive at least three high end GeForce RTX graphics cards on the day of announcement on September 1st.
The leaker marks a 24 GB variant, a 20 GB variant and a 10 GB variant. All of these cards are based on the GA102 GPU core, as they are proposed to have a 384-bit and a 320-bit VRAM bus interface. The GA104 GPU will come with a smaller 256-bit bus as it has historically come. It seems that NVIDIA has decided to go with a 16 GB variant, so AMD’s Radeon RX ‘Big Navi’ GPU this year will take the place of offering the highest end 16 GB, but from the outside, even a 10 GB NVIDIA’s GB model will be very competitive with what AMD has to offer in the high end segment.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere gaming graphics card render. (Image credit: Reddit u / dertpert88)
We do not know for what specific SKU these memory configurations would be used, but from recent rumors we can tell that the next-generation Titan that will use the full GA102 GPU star will offer 24 GB of memory. This will be followed by the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3080, both of which use a 320-bit bus interface but with 20 GB & 10 GB of memory capacity respectively.
With that said, the leaker also points to GDDR6X memory which is something that was also revealed by Kopite7kimi. Although the memory in production has not yet been confirmed by another DRAM manufacturer or displayed in existing roadmaps, there is a good chance that NVIDIA may have asked DRAM manufacturers working on next-generation DRAM for their graphics cards under wraps until the announcement is made. So if GDDR6 exists, we will probably know it by September 1st.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX ‘Ampere’ SUPER Graphics Cards Next year?
Another thing pointed out by the leaker is that NVIDIA plans to release an upcoming SUPER lineup as an upgrade to the existing cards. There’s no telling what the SUPER setup will bring, but we could see the graphics cards moving one GPU tier up and getting a boost in clocks, memory speed / capacity, etc., similar to the existing cards . The SUPER lineup would also lower the prices for the existing cards when they launch, but one should not expect them until the second half of 2021.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX Graphics Cards ‘Amps’ Launch in Custom Tastes at Launch?
In addition to all the rumors, TweakTown has reportedly confirmed through its sources at various AIBs that custom GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards will be available at launch alongside the Founders Edition variants. While NVIDIA would first open pre-orders for its own Founders Edition variants, users waiting for a custom variant will definitely receive one of the cards per launch day, which will be a few weeks away from announcement.
Here is everything we know about the NVIDIA GeForce RTX Ampere Gaming Graphics Cards
As for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Ampere gaming graphics cards, it is stated that the lineup is expected to consist of four graphics cards by 2020, these include:
- NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti
- NVIDIA RTX 3080
- NVIDIA RTX 3070
- NVIDIA RTX 3060
All four graphics cards are scheduled for launch in 2020, but will have different launch schedules. The high-end cards will first be prioritized with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 plan to launch in September, which is about a month away from now. The GeForce RTX 3070 will be launched a month later in October, while the GeForce RTX 3060 mainstream graphics card will hit store shelves in November.
As to what we can expect from NVIDIA’s high-end GeForce RTX 30 Series Ampere gaming graphics cards, we have speculated / rumored information below:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti – The Fastest Ampere Graphics Card
According to the details, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will have the GA102-300-A1 GPU. The GA102-300-A1 GPU is said to consist of 5248 CUDA cores and 82 SMs. In total, this is a 20% increase in cores over the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. No details like clock speed, TMU / ROP counts are provided and we can not take the Ampere A100 die as a reference because gaming and HPC parts share a different configuration hierarchy.
Going to the memory side things are starting to look interesting as it is said that the card will get up to 20 GB of memory with faster GDDR6 pin speeds. Since this is a 320-bit bus we are looking at, it will be able to offer almost 1 TB / s bandwidth, considering that the new GDDR6X memory that is rumored for this graphics card runs at higher speeds than the existing GDDR6- memory dies which clock up to 16-18 Gbps.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 – GA102 For High-End Gaming
Going to the GeForce RTX 3080 reports the rumor that the card will be with the GA102-200-KD-A1 SKU. This trimmed SKU will have the same 4352 CUDA cores as the RTX 2080 Ti which will handle a total of 68 SMs. After all, the card will have 20 GB of memory, which will also be GDDR6X, and will run at 19 Gbps over a 320-bit bus interface with a bandwidth of 760 GB / s.
The switch to GA102 from TU104 on the RTX 2080 is definitely an interesting one. A high end SKU would also result in higher wattage and thermals, but I believe this could be done to raise the bar on the sub $ 500 segment that should consist of GA104 based RTX 3070 and RTX 3060. The latest performance leaks also show a manly performance improvement over the RTX 2080 and even the RTX 2080 Ti in synthetic benchmarks. If the same could translate to the performance of gaming, then Ampere seems like a super attractive product for gamers who have been waiting for almost 2 years now.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 “Amps” Graphics Card Rumor Launch / Specs:
| Name of graphics card | GPU Name | SMs / CUDA cores | Memory capacity | Memory Bus | Start time frame |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | Ampere GA102-300? | 5248 (82)? | 20 GB GDDR6 (X)? | 384-bit | September 2020 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | Ampere GA102-200? | 4352 (68)? | 10 GB GDDR6 (X)? | 320-bit? | September 2020 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | Ampere GA104-400? | 2944 (46)? | 8 GB GDDR6 (X)? | 256-bit? | October 2020 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | Ampere GA106-300? | TBD | 8 GB GDDR6 (X)? | 256-bit? | November 2020 |
Recent reports have suggested that NVIDIA has halted production of its higher-end GeForce RTX GPU setup to prepare for the Ampere GeForce RTX launch. Only small quantities of the mentioned GPUs are left in the retail channel, which suggests that we are getting closer to the launch. There is definitely a lot more to talk about on the Ampere GPUs, but we’ll have to wait until more information comes our way.
