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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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About the author -
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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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x_wing Sep 3, 2020
Quoting: HoriNEW GPU prices went down!
Hmm... is more like new gpu pices didn't go up since last release (which increased their MSRP compared to previous gen). It's weird that keeping old increased prices can be felt as a price lowering... marketing 101 I guess.

Quoting: HoriSure AMD has open source drivers but... they're just too expensive. And their cards lack too many features that Nvidia offers.

Nvenc, CUDA and what else? At feature level, Nvidia and AMD offers mostly the same features on Linux.
CFWhitman Sep 4, 2020
Quoting: Hori
Quoting: kokoko3kI just hope old gpu prices goes down, but it never happens.
NEW GPU prices went down!
But this time I expect the old GPU prices to go way down... otherwise people will just buy the new ones lol (which are MUCH better anyway)

No, performance went up (or will go up at least). The prices haven't really moved.

Quoting: HoriAnd what's the alternative?
AMD is the only competitor and it's way too expensive. The performance you get for what you pay is nowhere near what Nvidia offers.
And if their claims for this generation are true (and I expect them to be), then AMD just got buried even further.

Sure AMD has open source drivers but... they're just too expensive. And their cards lack too many features that Nvidia offers.

This is a bunch of nonsense. You appear to be comparing prices for the next generation of Nvidia cards which haven't actually hit the market yet to prices of AMD cards for sometime before the new cards were announced and totally ignore the fact that there is a new generation of AMD cards being introduced within the next three months as well. Prices won't stabilize until after all of the next generation lands. Only then will you be able to judge pricing for the next generation.

Reasonably, we can expect no less than what we've been seeing up to this point. The new AMD cards will be at least as good as the mid-tier cards ($400-$500 range) from Nvidia and at a generally better price to performance ratio.

It's possible we could see higher end performance from AMD as well, but I neither expect that nor care much about it since I am much more likely to spend $400 for a card than $700, and cards costing $1000 are not even a consideration for me (unless some rich relative of mine that I'm not even aware of leaves me millions of dollars in their will).

Quoting: HoriSure AMD has open source drivers but... they're just too expensive. And their cards lack too many features that Nvidia offers.

As I already mentioned AMD cards tend to be less expensive than Nvidia, so if AMD cards are too expensive, Nvidia are more so.

For Windows, there are good arguments in Nvidia's favor. If I were running Windows as my primary operating system, there's a good chance I would have an Nvidia card. Nvidia cards tend to have better drivers and they have introduced ray-tracing and other features sooner.

However, for Linux, AMD has points in its favor. The drivers are open source and getting to the point where they seem better than the Windows drivers, while Nvidia's drivers are effectively worse in Linux than Windows (mostly only worse for non-gaming applications, though, but those are still important to me). Also, again, AMD has the price/performance advantage. Gaming graphics features are pretty much on par in Linux, and the new generation of AMD cards (along with the new Nvidia cards) are expected to start pushing ray-tracing toward being a more common game feature in Linux.

Even in Linux, if you want to go to high end graphics for gaming, especially above $1000, then Nvidia is your card. Otherwise, AMD deserves serious consideration. Of course, it's impossible to know for sure what the best way to go is until after the next generation of cards from both companies hit the market.
slaapliedje Sep 6, 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.

I found something interesting... well 1) 3D Mark has a benchmark that will work with DLSS. Sadly, I couldn't get it to work in Proton, outside of it loading the launcher.

Shadow of the Tombraider should add support for it, but it's not there in the Linux version, and I couldn't get it to launch through Proton. So I tried in Windows and... DLSS doesn't support Super Ultrawide resolutions in the game, only could do 1920x1200, and it ran pretty low. I was getting 50-60fps with everything set to max in Linux at 3840x1200, but in Windows, it w as struggling at 1920x1200 with DLSS on.
x_wing Sep 6, 2020
Quoting: slaapliedjeShadow of the Tombraider should add support for it, but it's not there in the Linux version, and I couldn't get it to launch through Proton. So I tried in Windows and... DLSS doesn't support Super Ultrawide resolutions in the game, only could do 1920x1200, and it ran pretty low. I was getting 50-60fps with everything set to max in Linux at 3840x1200, but in Windows, it w as struggling at 1920x1200 with DLSS on.

SOTR implements ray tracing on DX12 so I doubt it will be added to Linux.
slaapliedje Sep 8, 2020
Quick, order they are almost out of stock!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GJ3ZD69/
So yeah, I wouldn't complain too much on the price of the 3080...
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