A picture of the upcoming Ampere board with the GPU hidden by an Intel CPU.
Upcoming Ampere graphics cards, of the MSI flavor, have leaked out on the EEC registry (via Videocardz). We are just 7 days to NVIDIA’s announcement of their brand new gaming lineup and speculation and leaks are running rampant as we enter into the crunch time for their next generation of GPUs. The registry features the codenames of NVIDIAs upcoming cards and as decoded by WhyCry they translate to the RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 respectively.
MSI’s RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 graphics cards spotted getting their EEC certification
All integrated circuits are required to have EEC certification prior to launch and these are usually a very good indicator of foretelling and confirming various GPUs and launches. That said, while all GPUs that launch have to get an EEC certification not all GPUs that get an EEC certification actually end up on the shelves. With this particular leak, since we are fairly sure they refer to the RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 respectively, we will be seeing these graphics cards fairly soon.
NVIDIA is shaking things up with the Ampere architecture and we will be seeing what is expected to be a massive leap in performance (driven both by hardware and software) compared to the last generation. If the hype NVIDIA is generating with their ultimate countdown is to be trusted (and you can usually trust NVIDIA when they say it’s going to be exciting) then we should have something concrete within just 7 days at the time of writing.
A total of 29 different SKUs were spotted at EEC. These include 4x V390 variants (which we believe are the high-end RTX 3090), 11x v389 variants (RTX 3080) and 14x v388 variants (RTX 3070). To give you some more context, the RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 SUPER and RTX 2070 SUPER had a V377, V372 and V373 code respectively. These SKUs could also include AMD’s big navi cards since previous RX branded graphics cards have been spotted with similar nomenclature.
What we know about NVIDIA SKUs so far:
Since we do not know the confirmed naming schemes yet, I will refer to these boards according to their board numbers and the RTX 2000 series card they are intended to replace.
- The crown jewel of NVIDIA’s lineup is the PG132-10 board with 24GB of vRAM. It is going to be replacing the RTX 2080 Ti and is currently scheduled to launch in the second half of September.
- We then have the PG132-20 and PG132-30 boards, both of which are replacing the RTX 2080 SUPER graphics card and will have 20GB and 10GB worth of vRAM respectively. The PG132-20 board is going to be launching in the first half of October while the PG132-30 board is going to be launching in mid-September. It is worth adding here that these three parts are likely the SKU10, 20 and 30 we have been hearing about and the SKU20 is going to be targetted dead center at AMD’s Big Navi offering (and hence the staggered launch schedule). Since AMD’s Big Navi will *probably* have 16GB worth of vRAM, it also explains why NVIDIA wants to go with 20GB.
- The PG142-0 and PG142-10 are both going to be replacing the RTX 2070 SUPER and will feature 16GB and 8GB worth of vRAM respectively. While the PG142-10 has a known launch schedule in the second half of September, the PG142-0 board has no confirmed launch date yet.
- Finally, we have the PG190-10 board which is going to be replacing the RTX 2060 SUPER graphics card and will have 8GB of vRAM as well. The launch schedule for this board has not been decided yet either.
NVIDIA Ampere GPUs Partial Specs And Launch Dates
| Board ID | Replacement Class | vRAM | Bus Width | Launch Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG132-10 | 2080 Ti | 24 GB | 384 bit | 2H Sept. |
| PG132-20 | 2080 Super | 20 GB | 320 bit | 1H Oct. |
| PG132-30 | 2080 Super | 10 GB | 320 bit | Mid. Sept. |
| PG133* | 2080 FE (TBC) | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| PG142-0 | 2070 Super | 16 GB | TBD | TBD |
| PG142-10 | 2070 Super | 8 GB | 256 bit | 2H Sept. |
| PG136* | 2070 FE (TBC) | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| PG190-10 | 2060 Super | 8 GB | 256 bit | TBD |
* = not confirmed
September is shaping up to be an amazing month of tech enthusiasts with NVIDIA rolling out a brand new architecture (and series of graphics cards) and AMD finally pushing out Big Navi in the following few weeks as well. The Ampere series has had more leaks and rumors than any other series and as we enter into crunch time towards launch, many of these will be debunked or confirmed. We are also waiting to hear about more specifications from our sources and also a confirmation of the process node the Ampere series of GPUs will be manufactured at.
Right now, the expected nomenclature of these cards is going to be the RTX 3000 series with a potential RTX 3090 in the mix for the first time as well. But please keep in mind that NVIDIA has previously skipped nomenclature tiers just to discredit the leak scene and may do so again. The shrouds we saw were only in the validation phase and it would be trivial for NVIDIA to change the naming scheme. The board numbers, however, would stay the same. Regardless of what NVIDIA decides to call it, this is shaping up to be one hell of a generation.
