NVIDIA to Clear Out GA104 Inventory by Carving GeForce RTX 3060 Out of Them

[btarunr]

NVIDIA is preparing yet another variant of the GeForce RTX 3060 "Ampere" graphics card, by carving it out of the much larger "GA104" silicon. This SKU will feature 12 GB of faster 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory. Across a 192-bit memory bus, this yields an impressive 456 GB/s of memory bandwidth that's higher than the bandwidth of the original RTX 3070 with 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit memory bus (448 GB/s). From what we can tell, the core-configuration of the card remains the same, with 3,584 CUDA cores, 112 Tensor cores, 28 RT cores, 112 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. This SKU is carved out of the GA104 silicon by enabling 28 out of 48 SM (that's 58% of the available number-crunching machinery); and slashing down the memory interface by 25%.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chaitanya]

So more overpriced crap to flood the market.

 

[Kodehawa]

I wonder how much the extra memory bandwidth will do.

 

[Hyderz]

Won’t this butcher the 3060ti

 

[LabRat 891]

nVidia must have a massive glut of these chips. Unless someone can prove their yields *magically* improved exponentially towards the end of 3000series' mainstay, I'd say this move really does prove just how much nVidia's been gouging people and potentially even purposely limiting supply.
I'd laugh, but rarely has 'market compensation/correction' (in regards to supply-glut+demand-slump) even been of benefit to consumers: The '(r)e-tail apocalypse' seems to be leaving nvidia in a similar position to NAND and NAND-device manufacturers.
InB4 the fires, floods, outages and other 'supply chain problems'.

 

[A&P211]

It could be an oversupply from laptop chips. Lots of people for a few years where working from home, maybe Nvidia needed more laptop chips.

 

[sLowEnd]

Won’t this butcher the 3060ti

There's a GDDR6X variant of the 3060 Ti that's been out for a while. It's barely faster than the regular GDDR6 version.

 

[Dirt Chip]

3060 variations- you just can`t get enough of a good thing...

 

[ir_cow]

So a RTX 3060 12GB but with GDDR6X? Am I missing something here?

 

[mrdumbasspremium]

I wonder how much the extra memory bandwidth will do.

Not much at all, Memory bandwidth and performance is heavily dependent on 2 factors. One factor being GPU Core Compute and the other being resolution, It's tricky (if you barely understand) but in short with a GPU like a 3060 even at 20-22Gbps memory won't receive more than a 1-2% uplift at 1080p, 1440p, and possibly 4k too. In fact you would be lucky to receive that performance uplift from such high memory bandwidth speeds on that card. (very diminished returns in short)

 

[R0H1T]

Yeah instead of selling cheap RTX 307x- 3080(mobile) we better sell them as 3060, great idea JHH

 

[john_]

My bad. Didn't drink coffee yet. Deleted previous comment.

That extra bandwidth will probably help in some cases. The question is if coming out with a faster RTX 3060 is an indication that RTX 4060 will be considerably more expensive than $329. And I think we all know that answer for a long time now.

 

[Tomorrow]

This is not the first time they've done this. I rememeber there being GA104 based 3060's before.

 

[claes]

As long as new 30-series are on the market, 40-series will be more expensive. Gotta sell the overproduced product before margins make sense.

 

[Chrispy_]

nVidia must have a massive glut of these chips. Unless someone can prove their yields *magically* improved exponentially towards the end of 3000series' mainstay, I'd say this move really does prove just how much nVidia's been gouging people and potentially even purposely limiting supply.
I'd laugh, but rarely has 'market compensation/correction' (in regards to supply-glut+demand-slump) even been of benefit to consumers: The '(r)e-tail apocalypse' seems to be leaving nvidia in a similar position to NAND and NAND-device manufacturers.
InB4 the fires, floods, outages and other 'supply chain problems'.

They don't want to sell the 3080 at a reasonable price, because it's not a bad card in the face of 40-series pricing and very few people need or want an $800-1700 GPU.

Rather than move the market forward, having already crushed AMD's market share to sub-10% Nvidia are simply trying to extort the market to its limits while they have a near-monopoly. This is Nvidia, it's how they've operated in most non-consumer markets for years.

 

[Zer0code]

I have RTX 3060 on GA104 and I have strange unexplained artifacts in 2D mode in the browser and in some videos when the video decoder is running. But no problems in games. Thanks NVIDIA for selling defective chips.

 

[john_]

I have RTX 3060 on GA104 and I have strange unexplained artifacts in 2D mode in the browser and in some videos when the video decoder is running. But no problems in games. Thanks NVIDIA for selling defective chips.

No, no, no, NO. It's just "USER ERROR" when it is about Nvidia.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Not very exciting, but I guess with the competition sitting on inventory to keep prices high they can get away with it.

 

[Daven]

I think we won’t see low end Ampere and RDNA3 for a long time in order to clear last generation inventory.

 

[BoboOOZ]

They'd rather throw away almost half of the die surface instead of lowering prices. Greedy and anticonsumer as always, but hey, it works well for them! I'm sure they'd change strategy if it stopped working.

 

[Chrispy_]

I think we won’t see low end Ampere and RDNA3 for a long time in order to clear last generation inventory.

Based on the leaked specs and what we're seeing with laptop silicon that HASN'T been delayed, that's no immediate loss.

I'll keep recommending that people dip into the used market and avoid paying Nvidia a dime because there's no shortage of Ampere cards on the usual used markets and when you can buy them with the option to return them if faulty and with buyer protection from some of these used marketplaces, it really is dumb to buy a new Ampere card right now for the prices Nvidia want for them; Most of them are at least 2 years old so Nvidia selling them at or above MSRP is ridiculous.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Not very exciting, but I guess with the competition sitting on inventory to keep prices high they can get away with it.

What,. It's reported recently via corporate financial statement that Nvidia are sitting on significantly more stock than AMD like double or more, but but whataboutism sucks by the way.

Old tat that should have been sold years ago but that would have dropped the market price of 3##£ well I am not buying this tatt.

 

[neatfeatguy]

If this card does indeed come out and it's priced around the same level that original 3060 12GB cards are already selling at retail ($350-500, going off Micro Center's available stock and pricing). People would have to be batshit crazy to pay that price.

Do yourself a favor if you're looking for a mid-ranged GPU that can handle 1440p well, get a 6700XT/6750XT instead. They're pricing at $380-440 (Micro Center). You'd have anywhere from 20-30% performance gain over a 3060 at 1440p, same amount of VRAM (12GB) and have the same or slightly better performance with ray tracing, if that's your thing.

 

[Slizzo]

I would suggest an ARC 750 or 770 at these prices. Arguably a better card (that keeps getting better) and you get to signal to Intel that they should keep in market.

 

[Ownedtbh]

Just finally start naming the gpu better. Like.
4010
4020
4030
4040
….
We get over 10 „diffrent“ gpus from Nvidia each series anyways