Attraction of unprecedented generosity from NVIDIA: a preview of the line of video cards RTX 3000 Ampere
So, what have we been shown?
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NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang showed the first trinity of cards on the Ampere graphics architecture: GeForce RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. It is in this order of coolness, from the simplest to the most powerful.
This is really a new architecture that provides rich food for thought. The transition to a new 8-nm process technology (the giant Samsung is now responsible for it) will provide higher transistor density and better energy efficiency. The doubled number of transistors, new streaming multiprocessors and third-generation tensor cores will raise the overall performance to an unprecedented 30 TFLOPS.
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According to the techies from NVIDIA, the transition to the new architecture gives an almost twofold increase in performance per watt compared to the previous generation of Turing. The widely advertised, but few people have tried hardware ray tracing has also been pumped ― we also have a twofold increase in RT cores. The new GDDR6X memory is also a cause for delight from Micron. Firstly, its volumes have grown dramatically (previously there was a maximum of 11 GB, now 24 GB), and secondly, its data transfer rate has risen to 1 TB/s.
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These figures look much more interesting if you give them context. The original idea with ray tracing didn't work out to the end. In most games, the difference between global and local lighting was minimal, and FPS often sank by half. Judging by the new demo videos, this technology can become really useful.
Also, the new products can boast support for PCI Express 4.0 bus, HDMI 2.1 standard and a serious software upgrade. We are talking about the Nvidia RTX IO feature, which uses a video core to quickly download and unpack game resources. They promise that the speed of data input and output operations will increase 100 times compared to the API of hard drives and traditional storage. In words, this is more than a worthy answer to the PS5 and its SSD drive, which promises to load game worlds at the click of a finger.
Tests
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And now let's take a closer look at all three cards. Many brands like MSI, Gigabyte and Palit have already presented their options, and some publications have managed to test them quickly. However, the tests were fast, and not all the technical information was disclosed, so it is more correct to consider all of the following as such preliminary reviews.
So, the younger GeForce RTX 3070 is absolutely not associated with the epithet "junior". At least because being at the bottom of the list of cards on the Ampere core, in terms of performance, it bypasses yesterday's leader GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at half the price. Considering the price tag, it would be more correct to compare it with the GeForce RTX 2070. And in this fight, yesterday's veteran has no chance at all, the novelty turns out to be almost 60% more powerful. However, it has only 8 GB of video memory, for some users it will be a weighty reason to think about how appropriate such an upgrade is. In general, the card is characterized as an excellent choice for games in 4K and 1440p.
As for the variation from Palit, it belongs to the flagship GamingPro series. The GPU base frequencies are 1500 MHz in normal mode and 1725 MHz with automatic boost. The memory runs at a frequency of 14000 MHz, and the number of stream processors is 5888. So far, that's all we've been told after the presentation. Traditionally for NVIDIA products of recent years, the graphics card turned out to be massive: 294 mm long, occupies almost 3 slots, is cooled by three coolers. All this stuff consumes 220 watts of energy and is designed to work in a case with a 650-watt power supply.
The designers chose a combination of black and silver-grey colours, and the appearance of the model as a whole repeats the futuristic design of Ampere reference graphics cards with a bias in black and steel shades. The design of their cooling system includes a triple TurboFan cooler of the third generation. It is not yet clear how cold the Ampere family cards will turn out and it is too early to draw any conclusions about the efficiency of the cooling system. There is no way without decorations now, so in the centre of the cooling system there is a neat RGB backlight that makes its way through the grid of coolers, and does not hit the eyes with a spotlight.
According to the totality of characteristics, results and prices, the RTX 3080 is simply bound to become a favorite of hardcore gamers who want to get stable 60 FPS in any game at 4K resolution.
The cards use the same 2.7-slot cooling system with a massive radiator and three fans. The card is equipped with 10 GB of GDDR6X video memory with a 320-bit bus with a bandwidth of 760 GB/s. The memory frequency is 19000 MHz, and the volume will be 10 GB. The power consumption of the reference card is stated at 320 W, that is, a 750 W power supply is recommended. Gigabyte has not yet announced the power consumption of the card, but with a high degree of probability, you can count on the same figures.
The guys from the Eurogamer edition were lucky enough to get one of the test cards. As it turned out, NVIDIA was not lying about the leap forward. In 4K resolution with maximum graphics settings, RTX 3080 showed excellent results when compared with RTX 2080: in Borderlands 3, the novelty was 84% faster, in Shadow of Tomb Raider, the increase was 69%, and in Doom Eternal, the advantage in some cases reached 100%. With ray tracing enabled, the results were not only preserved, but even slightly increased somewhere.
The highest card in the Ampere family, the GeForce RTX 3090, received a GA102 GPU with 5248 CUDA cores and 28 billion transistors, a 384-bit memory bus and a hitherto unseen 24 GB of video memory with a theoretical bandwidth of 936 GB/s. All this stuff is equipped with three 8-pin connectors to supply additional power, since this monster in the reference version consumes 350 watts of energy. MSI did not reveal the cards about this, but most likely there will be the same numbers.
As for the GAMING X TRIO version from MSI, it offers an updated design of the TRI FROZR 2 cooling system with several massive radiators and a trinity of unusual TORX Fan 4.0 turntables. Their trick is that the blades of the turntables are somehow cunningly paired, thereby increasing overall efficiency. At least, when compared with the previous generation TRI FROZR. Because of its massiveness, the card was equipped with a rigidity plate to prevent bending of the board. Well, there is nowhere without RGB backlight for a product of this class now, so it is here.
Now what all this good is capable of. Immediately after the presentation, none of the journalists managed to thoroughly touch and test the map, so let's go through the tops. In preliminary tests, it was able to oppose RTX 2080 Ti in two games, one of which was Minecraft. In it, the novelty overtook the former leader exactly twice. In Wolfenstein: Youngblood, the increase was less, but also very close to a two-fold jump. It is worth noting that all games used ultra-settings and retrace. According to NVIDIA, the new RTX 3090 is perfect for gaming in 8K resolution.
When to wait in stores and how much?
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The new items will go on sale by the end of September and the beginning of October. The younger NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 with 8 GB of video memory starts at $499, the average RTX 3080 with 10 GB of video memory will cost customers $699, and the older RTX 3090 will have to pay an impressive amount of $ 1499 without extra charges from local retailers. Yes, it's expensive. But when will you still see a card with 24 GB of video memory on board?
Conclusion
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What can I say? This is some kind of auction of unprecedented generosity from NVIDIA. They could formally switch to an 8-nm process, while simply filling up the memory, overclocking the cores and getting a traditional increase of 30-40% by selling old candies in new wrappers. But instead, it turned out that even the weakest Ampere card on paper is more powerful than the strongest in the Turing line. The RTX 3070 costs only 500 evergreens and puts the former leader RTX 2080 Ti on the shoulder blades, for which they asked from $ 1000 and above. But GTX 3070 and RTX 3060 will certainly appear on the horizon, which will set the heat in the segment of inexpensive models. And then, as usual, the Ti-versions will arrive in time.
Why such gifts? First thought: it looks like the "greens" are going to carry 4K to the masses. Still, Turing models were prohibitively expensive, but 4K on Ultra was not always pulled out. In RDR2 or Metro Exodus, the FPS counter with such settings did not exceed 30 frames per second. The more obvious reason is the decline in profits. With the Turing generation, NVIDIA has seriously inflated prices, so many players have passed by. The third least obvious reason is related to the new generation consoles, which will compete with top-end PCs in power, but will cost much cheaper. NVIDIA is unprofitable for even more PC boyars to switch to the side of console developers and stop upgrading the computer every 3 to 4 years.
It remains to wait for the start of sales, real tests and, of course, a response from Radeon, whose engineers are in danger of serious sleep deprivation.
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