Shortly before this podcast was recorded we got to witness the most important announcement of 2020, the pending launch of the RTX 3000 Series Ampere video cards. These are the successor to the Current 2000 Series Turing video cards that brought Ray Tracing and graphics driven AI to the gaming market. The new RTX 3000 Series basically doubles down on what Turing had to offer and has been tweaked to make graphics more affordable.
RTX 3070 was announced to be faster than a RTX 2080 Ti and can be purchased for $500 USD
RTX 3080 was announced to be two times faster than RTX 2080 and can be purchased for $700 USD
RTX 3090, the new BFGPU, comes with over 10k CUDA cores and 24GB of memory can be purchased for $1500 USD.
All cards come with 1.7Ghz Boost clocks and featured an ultra compact PCB and refined cooling system that promises to offer better cooling performance while operating quieter than previous versions. While this design is unique to NVIDIA you can expect board partners to offer their own designs that are rumored to feature triple cooling fans and quad slot heatsinks for extra weight and even better cooling performance.
Of course there is no indication on overclocking performance and while the cards should deliver amazing performance and will be on everyone’s Christmas list there is something that feels weird. As Dennis noted in the show there seems to be a lift and shift going on where RTX 3070 is really a RTX 3060 priced at the higher level to make it seem affordable. The same is true of the RTX 3080 taking the spot of the RTX 2070 leaving the RTX 3090 being the top dawg at the RTX 2080 Ti level while being presented as the Titan replacement.
From a price standpoint this assessment fits while giving consumers confidence that they can once again buy a powerful GPU at an affordable price. The joke here is that they always could but felt ashamed at buying something so far down the product line.
Related Links
Compare Geforce RTX 30 Series Graphics Cards
NVIDIA Ultimate Countdown Ends in 18 Hours!
Ultimate Performance EVGA GeForce RTX 30 Series Graphics Cards
Episode 115 featured music:
Little People - Start Shootin' (http://www.littlepeoplemusic.com/)
