After the first official teaser of its next-generation GeForce RTX gaming graphics cards yesterday, NVIDIA has announced that it will be hosting a special GeForce Event on 1st September. NVIDIA’s CEO, Jensen Huang, will host the special GeForce event which will be delivered in a digital and pre-recorded format, similar to the GTC 2020 Digital keynote.
NVIDIA’s GeForce Special Event All-Set For 1st September, Jensen Huang To Introduce Next-Gen GeForce RTX ‘Ampere’ Gaming Graphics Cards
NVIDIA has also posted an official countdown timer which ends on September 1st at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. The official statement for the event is provided below:
NVIDIA will broadcast a GeForce Special Event, featuring an address by founder and CEO Jensen Huang, on Sept. 1, at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
During the event, Huang will highlight the company’s latest innovations in gaming and graphics. Tune in at https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/special-event/. via NVIDIA
What’s most exciting about this launch is the fact that it will take place a whole 21 years after the introduction of the iconic GeForce 256 which wasn’t just NVIDIA’s first commercial graphics card but also the first GPU ever produced. Keeping that in consideration, we can expect this specific gaming lineup to hold far more significance and importance than any previous GeForce RTX line.
Here’s 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 for 2020, these include:
- NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti
- NVIDIA RTX 3080
- NVIDIA RTX 3070
- NVIDIA RTX 3060
All four graphics cards are rumored for launch in 2020 but will have different launch schedules. The high-end cards will be prioritized first with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 slated to launch in September which is just about a month away from now. The GeForce RTX 3070 will be launch a month later in October while the GeForce RTX 3060 mainstream graphics card will hop on the retail shelves in November.
As for what we can expect from NVIDIA’s high-end GeForce RTX 30 series Ampere gaming graphics cards, we have speculated/rumored information provided below:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti – The Fastest Ampere Gaming Graphics Card
According to the details, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will feature the GA102-300-A1 GPU. The GA102-300-A1 GPU is said to be comprised of 5248 CUDA cores or 82 SMs. In total, that’s a 20% increase in cores over the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. No details such as clock speeds, TMU/ROP counts are provided and we can’t take the Ampere A100 die as a reference since gaming & HPC parts share a different configuration hierarchy.
Moving on to the memory side, things start to look interesting as it is stated that the card will get up to 12 GB memory with faster GDDR6 pin speeds. Since that’s a 384-bit bus we are looking at, it will be able to offer nearly 1 TB/s bandwidth. There’s also talks about an enhanced version of the GDDR6 DRAM known as GDDR6X however there’s no information available yet by any graphics DRAM vendor, unlike the previous GDDR6 DRAM which was officially reported months before its integration on the Turing graphics cards.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 – GA102 For High-End Gaming
Moving on to the GeForce RTX 3080, the rumor reports that the card will be featuring the GA102-200-KD-A1 SKU. This cut down SKU will feature the same 4352 CUDA cores as the RTX 2080 Ti that will be arranged in a total of 68 SMs. The card is reportedly going to feature 10 GB of memory that is also going to be GDDR6X, running at 19 Gbps across 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 up on the sub $500 segment which should comprise of GA104 based RTX 3070 and RTX 3060. The latest performance leaks also show a considerable performance improvement over the RTX 2080 and even the RTX 2080 Ti in synthetic benchmarks. If the same could translate over to the gaming performance, then Ampere does look like a super enticing product for gamers who have waited for almost 2 years now.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 “Ampere’ Graphics Card Rumored Launch/Specs:
| Graphics Card Name | GPU Name | SMs / CUDA Cores | Memory Capacity | Memory Bus | Launch Timeframe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | Ampere GA102-300? | 5248 (82)? | 12 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 GA104-300? | 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 the production of its higher-end GeForce RTX GPU lineup to prepare for the Ampere GeForce RTX launch. Only small quantities of the said GPUs are left in the retail channel thus suggesting that we are getting closer to the launch. There’s definitely a lot more to talk about regarding the Ampere GPUs but we will have to wait until more information comes our way.
