We just wrapped up watching NVIDIA’s GeForce Special Livestream event and boy there was quite a lot in there! The RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070 were all announced so let’s start there!
RTX 3090
Coming in as the flagship card and more of a “TITAN”-level card is the NVIDIA RTX 3090. This massive card 3-slot card will feature 36 Shader-TFLOPS, 69 RT-TFLOPS, and 285 Tensor-TFLOPS as well as 24GB of GDDR6X memory. NVIDIA is claiming that the card is capable of 8K gaming at up to 60 FPS! The card will be available starting September 24th for $1499.
RTX 3080
Moving down the line we have the RTX 3080, which is basically the high-end gamers card. It is a 2-slot card and much smaller than the RTX 3090. It will features 30 Shader-TFLOPS, 58 RT-TFLOPS, and 238 Tensor-TFLOPS as well as 10GB of GDDRX memory. NVIDIA is claiming up to 2x performance over t he RTX 2080! The card will be available September 17th and will start at $699.
RTX 3070
Completing the Ampere lineup will be the RTX 3070, which is even smaller than the RTX 3080. It features 20 Shader-FLOPS, 40 RT-TFLOPS, and 163 Tensor-TFLOPS as well as 8GB of GDDR6 (non-GDDR6X) memory. NVIDIA is claiming this card is faster than the $1200 RTX 2080 Ti!! It will start at $499 and be available in October.
Performance
NVIDIA put out a relative performance graph showing the performance increase over the previous 3 generations and they are calling Ampere the “Greatest Generational Leap” with the RTX 3070 being faster than the RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX 3080 being 2x as fast as t he RTX 2080.
Cooling
All three graphics cards will feature NVIDIA’s new flow-through cooling design. This cooling design is made to pull in cold air from the outside, which flows through the GPU, and then pushes hot air out of your PC case. NVIDIA claims this design is 3 times quieter, provides 55% more airflow, and keeps the GPU 20 degrees cooler than the previous design and can actually cool 90 watts more than Turing as well.
Power Connector
It appears as if both the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 will use NVIDIA’s new 12-pin power connector. As we mentioned previously this 12-pin power connector actually reduces board space, consolidates cabling, but at the same time does not compromise the cards power delivery capability. On the Founder’s Edition cards the connector is centrally located on the top edge of the card.
