Friday, October 23rd 2020
NVIDIA Readies New GeForce RTX 30-series SKU Positioned Between RTX 3070 and RTX 3080
Possibly unsure of the GeForce RTX 3070 tackling AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series parts, NVIDIA is designing a new RTX 30-series SKU positioned between the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. This is not a 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070, but rather a new SKU based on the 8 nm "GA102" silicon, according to a reliable source with NVIDIA leaks, kopite7kimi. The SKU is based on the GA102 with the ASIC code "GA102-150-KD-A1." The silicon is configured with 7,424 CUDA cores across 58 streaming multiprocessors (29 TPCs), 232 tensor cores, 232 TMUs, 58 RT cores, and an unknown number of ROPs. According to kopite7kimi, the card is configured with a 320-bit wide memory interface, although it's not known if this is conventional GDDR6, like the RTX 3070 has, or faster GDDR6X, like that on the RTX 3080.
NVIDIA recently "cancelled" a future 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070, and 20 GB variant of the RTX 3080, which is possibly the company calibrating its response to the Radeon RX 6000 series. We theorize that doubling in memory amounts may not have hit the desired cost-performance targets; and the company probably believes the competitive outlook of the RTX 3080 10 GB is secure. This explains the need for a SKU with performance halfway between that of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. As for pricing, with the RTX 3070 positioned at $500 and the RTX 3080 at $700, the new SKU could be priced somewhere in between. AMD's RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs are expected to feature DirectX 12 Ultimate logo compliance, meaning that there is a level playing ground between AMD and NVIDIA in the performance segment.
Source:
kopite7kimi (Twitter)
NVIDIA recently "cancelled" a future 16 GB variant of the RTX 3070, and 20 GB variant of the RTX 3080, which is possibly the company calibrating its response to the Radeon RX 6000 series. We theorize that doubling in memory amounts may not have hit the desired cost-performance targets; and the company probably believes the competitive outlook of the RTX 3080 10 GB is secure. This explains the need for a SKU with performance halfway between that of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. As for pricing, with the RTX 3070 positioned at $500 and the RTX 3080 at $700, the new SKU could be priced somewhere in between. AMD's RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs are expected to feature DirectX 12 Ultimate logo compliance, meaning that there is a level playing ground between AMD and NVIDIA in the performance segment.
86 Comments on NVIDIA Readies New GeForce RTX 30-series SKU Positioned Between RTX 3070 and RTX 3080
Edit: it must have been the end of the financial quarter. Now it makes more sense.
If you were price-scalped for an inferior card that's had crash to desktop issues at launch and a shortage of VRAM compared to the competition then I hope the last two months of 3000-series were worth it for you. Early adopter tax was high this time around.
Nobody is (should be) surprised here. There is a 25% performance gap and $200 between them. Seems normal to me...lol... wow. Shortage of vram, lol... a ctd issue resolved in a week with a driver.
Shortage of VRAM is going to be down to game devs in the future. I can't predict that with any accuracy and neither can you but two games in this last year forced me to dial back settings because I was using a 6GB card that had insufficient VRAM, and I'm not even running at 4K. DirectStorage also means that it should be easier than ever for Devs to load and make use of even higher resolution assets than we're currently used to seeing.
The best-case scenario for Nvidia is that game devs treat the consoles as the upper end of what they develop for, and 10GB will be just about enough. Empirical data and historic trends have proven repeatedly that game devs will not do that and they'll push whatever they can based on the hardware available at the time, and that'll be a bunch of 16GB cards. I reckon by 2022 when these cards are getting longer in the tooth, the limiting factor for pushing graphics detail will be VRAM limitations and not their framerate.
Called it.
36CU (2.1GHz) 8Gb Navi22L = $249 ->RX5700(XT) replacement
40CU (2.3GHz) 10Gb Navi22 = $299 -> RTX 3060TI/2080/1080TI competitor
52 CU (2.1GHz) 10Gb Navi 21L = $399 -> 2080TI/370 competitor
64 CU (2.1GHz) 12Gb Navi 21 = $449 -> 2080TI/3070 beater
72 CU (2.2GHz) 16Gb Navi 21XL = $599 -> 3080 competitor
80CU (as fast as it gets, the hell with TPD) 16Gb Navi 21XT = $999 -> 3080 beater and maybe 3090 competitor
Ya'll can cry over spilled milk. Me? Rooted in reality so, I'll pass on bitching about 10GB. I won't be one of the... people... thinking 'zOMG, it haz s1xt33n GBs it haz 2 b betterz!'
What will the leather jacket do when realize that the 6080XT has close performance to 3080 costing the same as the 3070 ? I wonder how much they can still cut in profit margins, I bet 10GB DDR6X costs over $200 and with this horrible yield/wafer the chip should cost almost the same(just kidding). lol lol