Nvidia recently unveiled their newest line of RTX graphics cards which are bringing forth massive improvements over the previous generation. Built under the Ampere architecture, the new RTX 3000 lineup of GPUs is slated to perform up to 90% better than their RTX 2000 counterparts.
The first of the RTX 3000 lineup to release will be the RTX 3080 on September 17th, it’s coming at us with an MSRP of $699. Following the RTX 3080, we’ll see the absolutely insane RTX 3090 drop on September 24th with an equally insane MSRP of $1499. Then, sometime in October, we’ll see the release of the more moderately priced RTX 3070 at $499.
Being that brand new cards always sell out before day 1, don’t expect to get your hands on one of these GPUs until late-October to mid-November when the AIB partner cards start releasing. Also, given Nvidia’s track record of re-upping their cards multiple times during the last generation, expect to see both Ti and Super variants of these new RTX 3000 cards.
In a hands-on preview with Digital Foundry, they found that the RTX 3080 can outperform the RTX 2080 by anywhere from 70-90% on average. It’s also said that the RTX 3070 can readily outperform the wickedly powerful RTX 2080 Ti. However, it’s also worth noting that Nvidia hand-selected the list of games that Digital Foundry would be testing, they also specified how the games were to be tested. Regardless, the performance increase over the previous generation is still the highest we’ve experienced to date – the last one being the jump from the GTX 980 to the GTX 1080.
In terms of specs, this is what we know so far:
| RTX 3090 | RTX 3080 | RTX 3070 | |
| CUDA Cores | 10496 | 8704 | 5888 |
| Core Clock | 1.7 GHz | 1.71 GHz | 1.73 GHz |
| VRAM | 24GB GDDR6X | 10GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Est. Power Consumption | 350 W | 320 W | 220 W |
| Suggested PSU Size | 750 W | 750 W | 650 W |
| Dimensions (Reference cards only) | 12.3″ x 5.4″ (3-slots) | 11.2″ x 4.4″ (2-slot) | 9.5″ x 4.4″ (2-slot) |
| Launch Date | Sept 24, 2020 | Sept 17, 2020 | TBD (October 2020) |
| MSRP (USD) | $1499 | $699 | $499 |
As far as an RTX 3060 goes, there have not been any official announcements regarding the existence of one. It is, however, very likely than an RTX 3060 will be released at some point following the RTX 2070. This is backed up by evidence found by VideoCardz that indicates an RTX 3060 has already been registered and exists, at least under Palit’s product lineup.
If you’re interested in getting your hands on one these cards day-1, we have bad news. Preorders are currently closed with an option to be notified when they open. Once those preorders do open, you’ll have to act very fast to get your card reserved. It’s not uncommon for new GPUs to sell out well before the day-1 release date and this time probably won’t be any different.
Nvidia’s official unveiling takes the form of a 39-minute video in which their CEO, Jensen Huang, explains the features and specs of Ampere in detail. If you’re interested in watching that yourself, here it is!
