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NVIDIA announce the RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070 with 2nd generation RTX

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Today the 'Ultimate Countdown' from NVIDIA ended with the announcement of the RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and the RTX 3070, all of them being absolute monsters with 2nd generation RTX. Powered by their Ampere generation, this definitely sounds like a big generational leap. It's really easy to be excited about it and I am.

Not just in terms of power, the price of the main two RTX 3080 and the RTX 3070 puts them well in line with the current 20xx generation which is pretty amazing for the difference in power. We need to take anything with a pinch of salt though of course, until independent benchmarks can be done.

Here's some shots from the presentation:

Meanwhile, the RTX 3090 is aimed at replacing the TITAN GPUs they did previously. A true overkill GPU, which they claim will let you play 8K.

Full specifications:

  GeForce RTX
3090
GeForce RTX
3080
GeForce RTX
3070
NVIDIA CUDA® Cores 10496 8704 5888
Boost Clock (GHz) 1.70 1.71 1.73
Standard Memory Config 24 GB GDDR6X 10 GB GDDR6X 8 GB GDDR6
Memory Interface Width 384-bit 320-bit 256-bit
Ray Tracing Cores 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation
Tensor Cores 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation
NVIDIA Architecture Ampere Ampere Ampere
NVIDIA DLSS Yes Yes Yes
PCI Express Gen 4 Yes Yes Yes
NVIDIA G-SYNC® Yes Yes Yes
Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6 Yes Yes Yes
HDMI 2.1 Yes Yes Yes
DisplayPort 1.4a Yes Yes Yes
NVIDIA Encoder 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation
NVIDIA Decoder 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation
VR Ready Yes Yes Yes
Maximum Digital Resolution (1) 7680x4320 7680x4320 7680x4320
Standard Display Connectors HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
Multi Monitor 4 4 4
HDCP 2.3 2.3 2.3
Length 12.3" (313 mm) 11.2" (285 mm) 9.5" (242 mm)
Width 5.4" (138 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm)
Height 3-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 93 93 93
Graphics Card Power (W) 350 320 220
Recommended System Power (W) (2) 750 750 650
Supplementary Power Connectors 2x PCIe 8-pin 2x PCIe 8-pin 1x PCIe 8-pin

On top of all that, they're also the first to come with support for the AV1 codec, which is very promising for being more efficient and more feature-filled than older popular codecs.

Pricing / Availability

  • RTX 3090 - £1,399 / $1,499 - Available September 24th
  • RTX 3080 - £649 / $699 - Available September 17th
  • RTX 3070 - £469 / $499 - Available October (no exact date given)

Each will also have a special Founders edition available, which an increased price.

When going by price to performance ratio, the RTX 3070 sounds absolutely ridiculous. If (big if), it truly has the RTX 2080 ti level performance for a vastly cheaper sum then it alone could help usher in a new level of gaming performance for a great many people. More GPUs based on Ampere will be coming, as these are just the first. I can't help but think about the RTX 3060, whenever they announce one that is. Considering the power of the RTX 3070, the RTX 3060 is quite likely to be a mega deal for people after both performance and an affordable price. Also makes me curious even more so now on Intel, as they announced their Xe-HPG gaming GPUs which arrive next year. Then we have AMD too with RDNA2 which is supposed to be this year. So much to look forward to for hardware enthusiasts!

Since NVIDIA support Ray Tracing already on Linux with their own extensions, and they already have early support for the vendor-neutral provisional Ray Tracing extensions in Vulkan it's going to be very interesting to see just how far developers will push it. Ideally though, we need more games on Linux that use it.

For those of you who really do love the serious technical side of it, NVIDIA has announced the release of a 'whitepaper' on the RTX 30 series which will be available on September 17. They say it will give a lot of detail on every aspect of the new cards in 'exhaustive detail'.

Other Windows-only stuff was announced too of course like RTX for Fortnite, a new 'NVIDIA Broadcast' effects suite application for livestreamers like backgrounds and noise removal, another RTX-powered application for video editing and more. Not that any of it matters for Linux users and gamers - sadly.

You can watch the whole thing below and see the announcement here.

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Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Hardware, NVIDIA
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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55 comments
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gardotd426 Sep 1, 2020
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: kokoko3kI just hope old gpu prices goes down, but it never happens.

They'd really prefer to price gouge you at all points in time, not just at release.

All that needs to be done is:

a) passing laws that force companies (...).

How about the complete opposite? Throw away all laws that currently pose an obstacle to competitors, don't force companies to anything. New players on the market will appear trying hard to get their niche, boom, prices drop. This is actually happening with VR sets right now.

Creating more laws against businesses does not make things better for the consumers. It onerates the entire production chain and makes it harder for everyone to get that. And it keeps competitors away for the big players. That's exactly what you don't want to happen.

That shows a basic incomprehension of economics and the fundamental tenets of Capitalism. And also a complete ignorance of history.

Free, unfettered Capitalism has already been tried. It ends in monopolies. "Competition" is an absolute meme, it's fundamental to any Capitalist system to prevent it becoming a hellscape, and yet the very nature of Capitalism dictates that every company should eliminate all competition. It's literally the profit motive. The fundamental, core, most important tenet of Capitalism. And the profit motive isn't "let's get enough profit to live comfortably," it's "always maximize profit."

Not a single economist or expert outside of discredited Austrian School lunatics actually believes what you're saying is even a thing.
gardotd426 Sep 1, 2020
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: kokoko3kI just hope old gpu prices goes down, but it never happens.

They'd really prefer to price gouge you at all points in time, not just at release.

All that needs to be done is:

a) passing laws that force companies (...).

How about the complete opposite? Throw away all laws that currently pose an obstacle to competitors, don't force companies to anything. New players on the market will appear trying hard to get their niche, boom, prices drop. This is actually happening with VR sets right now.

Creating more laws against businesses does not make things better for the consumers. It onerates the entire production chain and makes it harder for everyone to get that. And it keeps competitors away for the big players. That's exactly what you don't want to happen.
A big problem is that all the players in a market tend to end up being bought out by the larger players. That's basically just part of capitalism. (...)
And that happens because of the State -- specially laws and regulations --, not in spite of it. Big businesses do constantly skew the perception of the public to make it look like there is lack of regulations, and they win double by more and more obstacles which they are able to work with but not their smaller competitors. A freer market with no rules and thus no barrier against newcomers would be the best deterrent against monopolies. Sure, I understand there is a complex production chain, but these very same suppliers would benefit from more customers too, so it's not this chain that prevents competition. Conversely, it's hopeless to try and use the State against the big guys, they are best buddies and will use this whole perception to their profit.

This is objectively false. Big businesses don't "skew" anything, it is a natural, inherent aspect of all business to conglomerate, merge, acquire, etc. The idea of "an economy of small businesses and nothing else" is literally a myth and 100% impossible, minus some sort of regulation that limits the size of businesses. Even the small VR companies you talk about will be bought by Facebook or Microsoft or Apple or someone else if they become profitable enough, which is literally the entire goal. Again, it seems like you watched some bad documentaries or read some Ayn Rand and think you know what you're talking about, when you clearly have no idea.
x_wing Sep 1, 2020
Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyhow, I'm wanting to know what the performance of DLSS and VR games are! I mean if we can get 100% solid frames at 144hz on the Index... that'd be hella-cool.

Is there a anyway to use DLSS on Linux (I mean, with games that support the feature)? The first 15 minutes of the video just felt a like a lot of Windows only features for me.

The only big new for me is the MSRP for the 3070 and the 3080. Somehow Nvidia decided to not keep rising them... hopefully this means that AMD has something hot on hands.
x_wing Sep 1, 2020
Quoting: PatolaAnd that happens because of the State -- specially laws and regulations --, not in spite of it. Big businesses do constantly skew the perception of the public to make it look like there is lack of regulations, and they win double by more and more obstacles which they are able to work with but not their smaller competitors. A freer market with no rules and thus no barrier against newcomers would be the best deterrent against monopolies. Sure, I understand there is a complex production chain, but these very same suppliers would benefit from more customers too, so it's not this chain that prevents competition. Conversely, it's hopeless to try and use the State against the big guys, they are best buddies and will use this whole perception to their profit.

I fail to see which are the laws that prevents newcomers into the GPU market. IMO, the big wall is related with the dolar mountain you need to invest in order to become a new player.
Guerrilla Sep 1, 2020
I find these prices (relative to the performance, using DF's video as a proxy) to simply be "okay." Some people are acting like this is an insanely good deal due to the alleged performance compared to previous generations - I personally thought those prices were way overpriced, so this is merely getting them down to more acceptable levels.

That being said, I'll still be waiting to see what Big Navi offers. I'd rather stick with AMD anyway, but if it's a flop, I'll be looking at the 3080 more seriously. My Fury is okay for the time being.
dude Sep 1, 2020
Sounds good. But, can they run Crysis?
dubigrasu Sep 1, 2020
Interesting bit from Nvidia labs:



(from the video posted in op)
Shmerl Sep 2, 2020
Oh, an interesting tidbit. Firefox started supporting VAAPI hardware accelerated video decoding both on Wayland and X11 now. But it won't work on Nvidia blob due to it lacking dmabuf support.
Cyril Sep 2, 2020
About the economic/politic off topic, I can recommend to read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

About the Nvidia, primary topic, I don't care about theses new cards.


Last edited by Cyril on 2 September 2020 at 12:23 am UTC
gardotd426 Sep 2, 2020
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyhow, I'm wanting to know what the performance of DLSS and VR games are! I mean if we can get 100% solid frames at 144hz on the Index... that'd be hella-cool.

Is there a anyway to use DLSS on Linux (I mean, with games that support the feature)? The first 15 minutes of the video just felt a like a lot of Windows only features for me.

The only big new for me is the MSRP for the 3070 and the 3080. Somehow Nvidia decided to not keep rising them... hopefully this means that AMD has something hot on hands.

Nope. No DLSS or RTX on Linux (except for Quake II with RTX since it's native, but effectively no).

No DLSS (or alternative) is going to really, really hurt Linux adoption going forward now that the consoles and Nvidia and supposedly AMD will now all support it, and it's probably a bigger deal than RTX.

You might not care about RTX, or DLSS, or Gsync/Freesync on multiple monitors, or HDR support, etc, but odds are 95% of people will care about at least ONE of the things like that that Linux has absolutely no answer for, and most of them there's not even an answer on the horizon.
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