Here are the first pictures of the GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" Eagle OC and Gaming OC custom-design graphics cards by GIGABYTE. Both cards implement the company's latest generation WindForce 3X cooling solution that's triple-slot, featuring a trio of fans, and varying grades of factory overclocked speeds. The Eagle OC SKU could be positioned slightly above the Gaming OC SKU. Above the two, GIGABYTE could position its coveted AORUS Gaming branded graphics card. It's been established from yesterday's Gainward leaks, that 24 GB is the standard memory size for the RTX 3090, while 10 GB is standard for the RTX 3080.

Here are some of the first pictures of custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 "Ampere" graphics cards by Inno3D. The company bets big on the two upcoming high-end GPUs with its new generation iChill cooling solutions. Both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 get iChill X4 and iChill X3 SKUs. The iChill X4 cooler features a meaty aluminium fin-stack heatsink with four fans (three where you'd expect them, and a fourth tiny 60 mm fan along the top), and the highest grade of factory-overclock by Inno3D. The iChill X3 has just three fans, and a slightly lower factory overclock grade. At the lower end, the RTX 3090 gets a Gaming X3 SKU, and the RTX 3080 gets a Twin X2 SKU, both with mild factory overclock levels.

A mega dump of the Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix GS and RTX 3080 Phoenix GS reveal not only the common board design of the two cards, but also the final specs of the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. The RTX 3090 features 5,248 CUDA cores, and 24 GB of 19.5 Gbps GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit memory bus, which belts out 936 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The Gainward Phoenix GS runs the RTX 3090 at 1725 MHz boost frequency. The RTX 3080, on the other hand, features 4,352 CUDA cores, and 10 GB of 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory across a 320-bit memory bus, with 760 GB/s memory bandwidth. Gainward is running the RTX 3080 at 1740 MHz on the Phoenix GS.

What's interesting is the board power figures put out by Gainward. The RTX 3090 typical board power (at least for the Phoneix GS), is rated at 350 W, while that of the RTX 3080 is rated at 320 W. These explain why we're seeing custom-design RTX 3090 cards with either three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, or in case of the Founders Edition card, the 12-pin connector that's capable of 600 W power delivery. Many of the custom-design RTX 3080 cards we've come across have two 8-pin PCIe inputs. The slides also list out "2nd generation RTX technology," and "3rd gen tensor cores." Gainward's board features a meaty triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solution that has RGB LED illumination. We predict Palit's cards to look very similar to these (with different cooler shroud designs).Update 06:09 UTC: More pics follow, courtesy harukaze5719.

Here's a much clearer picture of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" graphics card by ASUS. A render of this card was revealed back in July, when the RTX 3090 was still speculated to be called the "RTX 3080 Ti." The card features the latest iteration of the ROG Strix design scheme by ASUS, with more shiny metal bits that conceal lighting elements. The cooler features a chunky aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by three Axial-Tech fans. The card is 3 slots thick, and about an inch taller than what would constitute "full height." VideoCardz, which is also the source of the image, predicts that ASUS could use same board design for both the RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080. We've seen custom-design RTX 3090 cards featuring as many as three 8-pin PCIe power inputs, while those based on the RTX 3080 have been shown with two. With the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 being based on the common silicon, the GA102, differing in memory and core configurations, the R&D costs for custom-design board partners is greatly reduced.

Just ahead of the September launch, specifications of NVIDIA's upcoming RTX Ampere lineup have been leaked by industry sources over at VideoCardz. According to the website, three alleged GeForce SKUs are being launched in September - RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070. The new lineup features major improvements: 2nd generation ray-tracing cores and 3rd generation tensor cores made for AI and ML. When it comes to connectivity and I/O, the new cards use the PCIe 4.0 interface and have support for the latest display outputs like HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a.

The GeForce RTX 3090 comes with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory running on a 384-bit bus at 19.5 Gbps. This gives a memory bandwidth capacity of 936 GB/s. The card features the GA102-300 GPU with 5,248 CUDA cores running at 1695 MHz, and is rated for 350 W TGP (board power). While the Founders Edition cards will use NVIDIA's new 12-pin power connector, non-Founders Edition cards, from board partners like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte, will be powered by two 8-pin connectors. Next up is specs for the GeForce RTX 3080, a GA102-200 based card that has 4,352 CUDA cores running at 1710 MHz, paired with 10 GB of GDDR6X memory running at 19 Gbps. The memory is connected with a 320-bit bus that achieves 760 GB/s bandwidth. The board is rated at 320 W and the card is designed to be powered by dual 8-pin connectors. And finally, there is the GeForce RTX 3070, which is built around the GA104-300 GPU with a yet unknown number of CUDA cores. We only know that it has the older non-X GDDR6 memory that runs at 16 Gbps speed on a 256-bit bus. The GPUs are supposedly manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process, possibly the EUV variant.

NVIDIA today shared the design philosophy behind the cooling solution of its next-generation GeForce "Ampere" RTX 3080 / 3090 graphics cards, which we'll hopefully learn more about on September 1, when NVIDIA has scheduled a GeForce Special Event. Part of the new video presentation shows the evolution of NVIDIA's cooling solutions over the years. NVIDIA explains the four pillars behind the design, stressing that thermals are at the heart of its innovation, and that the company looks to explore new ways to use air-cooling more effectively to cool graphics cards. To this effect, the cooling solution of the upcoming GeForce Ampere Founders Edition graphics cards features an airflow-optimized design focused on ensuring the most effective way to take in fresh air, transfer heat to it, and exhaust the warm air in the most optimal manner.

The next pillar of NVIDIA's cooling technology innovation is mechanical structure, to minimize the structural components of the cooler without compromising on strength. The new Founder Edition cooler introduces a new low profile leaf spring that leaves more room for a back cover. Next up is reducing the electrical clutter, with the introduction of a new 12-pin power connector that is more compact, consolidates cabling, and yet does not affect the card's power delivery capability. The last pillar is product design, which puts NVIDIA's innovations together in an airy new industrial design. The video presentation includes commentary from NVIDIA's product design engineers who explain the art and science behind the next GeForce. NVIDIA is expected to tell us more about the next generation GeForce Ampere at a Special Event on September 1.

MSI has recently registered 29 new graphics card codes with the Eurasian Economic Commission which are all expected to be upcoming NVIDIA Ampere models. These codes have been registered as "Video Cards" and coincide with NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce Special Event on September 1 where the GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs are expected to be announced including the much-rumored NVIDIA RTX 3090. The codes include 3 main sets with 02-V388, 602-V389, and 602-V390 which coincide with previous generation MSI graphics cards. The V388 likely refers to the RTX 3090, the V389 with the RTX 3080, and the V390 the RTX 3070 if following the same pattern as the GeForce RTX 20-series.

NVIDIA's second fastest "Ampere" graphics card to launch this year, the GeForce RTX 3080, surfaced on the Userbenchmark database. Hardware Leaks (aka @_rogame) fished out several juicy details about the card that will be positioned right below the flagship RTX 3090 (RTX 2080 Ti successor) that's been in the news lately. The RTX 3080 succeeds the RTX 2080. On the Userbenchmark database, the purported RTX 3080 is shown bearing a device ID "10DE 2206." Among its readable specs leaked are a GPU frequency of up to 2.10 GHz, possibly frequency capped just like "Turing," and 10 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 320-bit wide memory interface, and a memory clock speed of 19 Gbps (GDDR6X effective), which works out to 760 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

An unknown NVIDIA GeForce "Ampere" GPU model surfaced on 3DMark Time Spy online database. We don't know if this is the RTX 3080 (RTX 2080 successor), or the top-tier RTX 3090 (RTX 2080 Ti successor). Rumored specs of the two are covered in our older article. The 3DMark Time Spy score unearthed by _rogame (Hardware Leaks) is 18257 points, which is close to 31 percent faster than the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, 22 percent faster than the TITAN RTX, and just a tiny bit slower than KINGPIN's record-setting EVGA RTX 2080 Ti XC. Futuremark SystemInfo reads the GPU clock speeds of the "Ampere" card as 1935 MHz, and its memory clock at "6000 MHz." Normally, SystemInfo reads the memory actual clock (i.e. 1750 MHz for 14 Gbps GDDR6 effective). Perhaps SystemInfo isn't yet optimized for reading memory clocks on "Ampere."

Alleged specifications of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and next-generation TITAN graphics cards, based on the "Ampere" graphics architecture, surfaced in tweets by KatCorgi, mirroring an early-June kopite7kimi tweet, sources with a high hit-rate on NVIDIA rumors. All three SKUs will be based on the 7 nm "GA102" silicon, but with varying memory and core configurations, targeting three vastly different price-points. The RTX 3080 succeeds the current RTX 2080/Super, and allegedly features 4,352 CUDA cores. It features a 320-bit GDDR6X memory interface, with its memory ticking at 19 Gbps.

The RTX 3090 is heir-apparent to the RTX 2080 Ti, and is endowed with 5,248 CUDA cores, 12 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit wide memory bus clocked at 21 Gbps. The king of the hill is the TITAN Ampere, succeeding the TITAN RTX. It probably maxes out the GA102 ASIC with 5,326 CUDA cores, offers double the memory amount of the RTX 3090, at 24 GB, but at lower memory clock speeds of 17 Gbps. NVIDIA is expected to announce these cards in September, 2020.

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce "Ampere" RTX 3000 series graphics cards are heading for a September reveal, along with availability shortly after. Much of the news cycle over the past couple of weeks revolved around alleged leaks of the card's cooling solution that provides insights into what the finished product could look like, with some even doubting the veracity of the picture leaks given the September launch. Igor's Lab did some digging into the production timeline of these cards. The leaks seem to perfectly align with the timeline.

The chip design, prototyping, taping-out, and testing of "Ampere" IP completed before the mass-production timeline kicks off. This begins in April/May, with NVIDIA's OEM partners and other suppliers finalizing a bill of materials (BOM). June is also when the products go through the EVT (engineering validation test) and DVT (design validation test). It is at these stages that NVIDIA has the opportunity to approve or summarily reject/change the design of the product and finalize it. By July, there are working samples of the finished products for NVIDIA and its industry partners to validate. This is also when regulators such as the FCC and CE conduct EMI tests. Production validation tests (PVT), or proofing of the production line, occurs in late-July/early-August. The final BIOS is released to the OEM by NVIDIA around this time. Mass-production finally commences in August, and the onward march to distributors rolls on. The media event announcing the product and press reviews follow in September, and market availability shortly thereafter.

Although still a blurry-cam pic, this new picture of three GeForce RTX 3080 "Ampere" graphics card reference heatsinks on a factory-floor reveals exactly how the cooling solution works. The main heat-dissipation component appears to be a vapor chamber base, above which there are four flattened copper heat pipes, which hold the cooler's four aluminium fin arrays together. The first array is directly above the CPU/memory/VRM area, and consists of a dense stack of aluminium fins that make up a cavity for the fan on the obverse side of the graphics card. This fan vents air onto the first heatsink element, and some of its air is guided by the heatsink to two trapezium shaped aluminium fin-stacks that pull heat from the flattened heat pipes, and get airflow from the obverse fan.

The heat pipes make their way to the card's second dense aluminium fin-stack. This fin-stack is as thick as the card itself, as there's no PCB here. This fin-stack is ventilated by the card's second fan, located on the reverse side, which pulls air through this fin-stack and vents upward. We attempted to detail the cooling solution, the card, and other SKU details in an older article. We've also added a picture of a Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse graphics card. This NVIDIA heatsink is essentially like that, but with the second fan on the other side of the card to make it look more complicated than it actually is.

Pictures of alleged next-generation GeForce "Ampere" graphics cards emerged over the weekend, which many of our readers found hard to believe. It's features a dual-fan cooling solution, in which one of the two fans is on the reverse side of the card, blowing air outward from the cooling solution, while the PCB extends two-thirds the length of the card. Since then, there have been several fan-made 3D renders of the card. NVIDIA is not happy with the leak, and started an investigation into two of its contractors responsible for manufacturing Founders Edition (reference design) GeForce graphics cards, Foxconn and BYD (Build Your Dreams), according to a report by Igor's Lab.

According to the report, the cooling solution, which looks a lot more overengineered than the company's RTX 20-series Founders Edition cooler, costs a hefty USD $150, or roughly the price of a 280 mm AIO CLC. It wouldn't surprise us if Asetek's RadCard costs less. The cooler consists of several interconnected heatsink elements with the PCB in the middle. Igor's Lab reports that the card is estimated to be 21.9 cm in length. Given its cost, NVIDIA is reserving this cooler for only the top three SKUs in the lineup, the TITAN RTX successor, the RTX 2080 Ti successor, and the RTX 2080/SUPER successor.

Last week we reported on the leaked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 reference card images which showed a large departure from the designs of previous NVIDIA reference cards with a dual-fan aluminium fin-stack cooler. Reddit user u/JDSP_ has created some high quality renders of the card which were shared online, the renders are missing power connectors, NVLink, and PCB material but other than that may be a good look at what's coming from NVIDIA.

Here are what could be the very first pictures of a reference NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 "Ampere" graphics card revealing an unusual board design, which is the biggest departure in NVIDIA's design schemes since the original GeForce TITAN. It features a dual-fan aluminium fin-stack cooler, except that one of its fans is located on the obverse side, and the other on the reverse side of the card. The PCB of the card appears to extend only two-thirds the length of the card, ending in an inward cutout, beyond which there's only an extension of the cooling solution. The cooler shroud, rather than being a solid covering of the heatsink, is made of aluminium heatsink ridges. All in all, a very unusual design, which NVIDIA could implement on its top-tier SKUs, such as the RTX 3080, RTX 3080 Ti, and in a cosmetic form on lower SKUs. We get the feeling that "Cyberpunk 2077" has influenced this design.