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NVIDIA have revealed the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti officially today, along with a release date of December 2 and it sounds like quite an awesome card.

Hitting performance levels (and above!) comparable to the RTX 2080 SUPER, which for the price is absolutely amazing at $399 / £369 which is far less than the 2080 SUPER. When it becomes available on December 2 this will be as custom boards including stock-clocked and factory overclocked models from various vendors as well as a Founders Edition direct from NVIDIA.

Want some specs? Here's a comparison between the models of the 3000 series:

    GEFORCE RTX
3090
GEFORCE RTX
3080
GEFORCE RTX
3070
GEFORCE RTX
3060 Ti
GPU Engine Specs: NVIDIA CUDA® Cores 10496 8704 5888 4864
  Boost Clock (GHz) 1.70 1.71 1.73 1.67
           
Memory Specs: Standard Memory Config 24 GB GDDR6X 10 GB GDDR6X 8 GB GDDR6 8 GB GDDR6
  Memory Interface Width 384-bit 320-bit 256-bit 256-bit
           
Technology Support: Ray Tracing Cores 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation
  Tensor Cores 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation
  NVIDIA Architecture Ampere Ampere Ampere Ampere
  PCI Express Gen 4 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  NVIDIA G-SYNC Yes Yes Yes Yes
  Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  HDMI 2.1 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  DisplayPort 1.4a Yes Yes Yes Yes
  NVIDIA Encoder 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation
  NVIDIA Decoder 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation
Display Support: Maximum Digital Resolution 7680x4320 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 HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
  Multi Monitor 4 4 4 4
  HDCP 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3
           
Founders Edition Card Dimensions: Length 12.3" (313 mm) 11.2" (285 mm) 9.5" (242 mm) 9.5" (242 mm)
  Width 5.4" (138 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm)
  Slot 3-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot
           
Founders Edition Thermal Power Specs: Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 93 93 93 93
  Graphics Card Power (W) 350 320 220 200
  Required System Power (W) (2) 750 750 650 600
  Supplementary Power Connectors 2x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
2x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
1x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
1x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)

As long as you're not going for 4K gaming, the GeForce RTS 3060 Ti seems like a winner, and would likely be exactly what I would be going for if I was going to be building a system. At 1440p and 1080p gaming, it seems ideal. NVIDIA drivers generally have good Linux support too, and we expect NVIDIA to have a fresh driver up either today or tomorrow to formally add support for it on Linux - like they always do with a new GPU release. We're never left waiting around. 

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Going by Phoronix benchmarks on Linux, it seems like performance winner. I get that technology moves on quickly but even so, it still slightly amazes me just how much performance and price has come along with cards like this.

The real question is: just how fast will stock vanish this time? It may be releasing on December 2, doesn't mean many people will actually be able to get one though like the last few new GPU release.

If you do buy one, NVIDIA are throwing in one whole year of GeForce NOW Founder membership too which is open to both new and existing GFN customers to sweeten the deal. With their plans to actually support Linux with GFN in the browser, that sounds good.

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3zekiel Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: minfaer
Quoting: 3zekielRay tracing is coming, and it is to be expected that it will be ubiquitous real fast now.

But will it come before 2018 aka Wayland in production use? Oh, wait, it's already 2020! Using a 27' 4k screen, I already depend on it in production for fractional scaling.

Quoting: 3zekielAMD cards will become expensive open source paperweights before long
Until they do not offer acceleration in XWayland, NVidias cards are 'expensive closed source' paperweights for Games right NOW for me. Ofc, your situation can be different (so this is not to answer Kimyrielle's original question about there being any use, but rather to comment the fallacies in reply to it).

Even putting OSS ideals aside, what I see is NVidias driver stack more and more failing to enable a modern Linux desktop experience, not for being badly implemented, but for being at odds with the Linux model architecturally. Just look at the EGLStreams mess. If they want to address these problems, this would require NVidia to rewrite large parts of their driver in a way more compatible with Linux's model, and therefore lose the advatages they get from sharing large parts of the codebase with Windows.

They were the best on the market in the early 2010s, but AMD has integrated much better into the Linux ecosystem and is now offering the superior driver situation for general desktop use and Intel always had a good practice for Linux drivers and upstreaming graphics stuff. I'm looking forward to them joining the dGPU market.

For XWayland, Fedora team is working on it so you can use it without having to go through a copr. And yes, I agree Nvidia defo has some rough egdes. Wayland is not very useful for now, but it is coming to be. For the discharge of Nvidia, necessary code is in X11 git, but there is just no release due to Xorg becoming basically abandonware, so to set it up you have to go through copr or whatever the equivalent is on *deb distros to get it working. That being said, you also need to do the same for AMD radv/ACO drivers so ...

On other answer about RT not becoming more and more important, just look at what gamers ask on various streams, and look at how many games now support or make full use of it. For linux, it mostly needs to be enabled in vkd3d/dxvk, where Khronos made the implem fit that special need, so I expect it will come real soon, making it not much of a gimmick. I don't expect Khronos would waste time creating API that way if it was not coming - most likely there is stadia push too. DLSS is another discussion certainly, it's true I should not include it in the comparison yet.

More generally, For RT becoming ubiquitous, now all GPUs which roll out, including that of consoles will most likely be equipped. So the prerequisites are here. And it really improves stuff so...

On the other side, I'm definitely waiting on Intel new card before buying anything. Because Intel driver + potentially good RT perf, now, that would beat Nvidia all the way. Intel igpu, from a desktop/driver perspective is indeed the best in class, never had to tinker, pretty much never had any strange bugs, no kernel version limitation, full support for gpu virtualisation in consumer hw, which is a killer feature for me. Intel is certainly a perfect game on sw support, and are truly the superior option when it comes to Linux workstation (and since my machine need to do both game and work). Just hope their dgpu is good in term of hw too :)
PJ Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: KimyrielleIs there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days?

It really depends. If you need a stable driver you won't have to uninstall/rebuild manually after each kernel update and you need cuda for some computation (3d rendering for example) Nvidia is sadly the way to go, no matter how pissed I am the whole Wayland deal has not been sorted out.

But if you need something for gaming and everyday Linux desktop AMD can be a nice option.
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: poisondI have no idea how you come to the conclusion that NVidia performs worse for DXVK titles when all evidence points to the opposite.

vkd3d-proton and dxvk are not the same and what I wrote is straight from developers. Phoronix might have tested dxvk in the past, but I haven't seen any tests for dxvk or vkd3d-proton in the regular reports there.
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: PJIt really depends. If you need a stable driver you won't have to uninstall/rebuild manually after each kernel update

That's exactly AMD situation (the driver is part of the kernel). Nvidia on the the other hand requires rebuilding the driver because it's not upstream and uses dkms. So tough luck if they don't support certain kernels like happened recently.


Last edited by Shmerl on 2 December 2020 at 3:36 pm UTC
PJ Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: PJIt really depends. If you need a stable driver you won't have to uninstall/rebuild manually after each kernel update

That's exactly AMD situation (the driver is part of the kernel).

Not really, but to I should had been more clear what I mean. If you're creative you probably need good opencl and stable opengl that works well in professional content creation apps (no matter 3d, video production etc). Sadly this means Mesa won't be enough.
Thus when you're on AMD you need to install AMDGPU PRO. And my experience is that as you don't have a repo for amdgpu pro for most distros provided by AMD after each kernel update you end with a blank black screen and you neeed to reinstall the driver.
With Nvidia it is just way simpler - you get the rebuilt driver after a kernel update (or at least should - which worked for me in the last 3 or 4 years) as Nvidia offers repos for the most popular distros.

And to be clear - all I am saying is that it is still not that simple. I'd love to use AMD (because of Wayland for example), but as a creative I'd be shooting myself in the foot (and yeah.... I've tried).

But I totally understand that if you're a typical desktop user and just need good gaming performance and nice desktop AMD can be a good option for you.


Last edited by PJ on 2 December 2020 at 6:12 pm UTC
3zekiel Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: PJIt really depends. If you need a stable driver you won't have to uninstall/rebuild manually after each kernel update

That's exactly AMD situation (the driver is part of the kernel). Nvidia on the the other hand requires rebuilding the driver because it's not upstream and uses dkms. So tough luck if they don't support certain kernels like happened recently.

don't know for other distros, but on Fedora/Centos nvidia is using akmods, so you never have to rebuild anything yourself.
As for the kernel support:
1/ With nvidia you don't need latest kernel usually, unless you absolutely need another feature.
2/ it happened once in I don't know how long that you could not get the new one right ways... And it was mostly because of Licence stuff.
3/ With AMD, the number of time I have to go and use some copr to get latest kernel/mesa for my wife is actually much higher, and I rarely see you guys bragging about that. And no, having to use third party stuff, compiling latest stuff on a workstation OR normal desktop is not ideal/normal at all - it might be smthg you do for fun or use your own modified kernel for fsync as an example, where you know exactly what goes inside though - ... Especially not kernel and graphic stack which I'd rather be stable, so not git or stuff not tested at all by distro. For nvidia, only need to get the detached Xwayland-git package (without any of the rest of X) which as a matter of fact is semi official now.

To be perfectly fair, neither nvidia(mostly with cuda stuff, never for gaming to be fair) nor amd give the hassle free/clean road so far, both have their catch. So far for me, only Intel does give what looks like it, just igpu is not powerful enough (did I say I wait on your dgpu Intel? please do not disappoint me, please).
3zekiel Dec 2, 2020
[quote=PJ][quote=Shmerl]
Quoting: PJAnd to be clear - all I am saying is that it is still not that simple. I'd love to use AMD (because of Wayland for example), but as a creative I'd be shooting myself in the foot (and yeah.... I've tried).

For wayland (well you probably mean Xwayland in fact) on fedora at least: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/XwaylandStandalone and yes, it has code to support Nvidia.


Last edited by 3zekiel on 2 December 2020 at 6:15 pm UTC
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
I'm talking about gaming. I never needed OpenCL or using AMD-pro.

Also, AMD are working to replace their closed OpenGL with Mesa gradually. OpenCL work is done independently and is progressing well.


Last edited by Shmerl on 2 December 2020 at 6:35 pm UTC
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
Quoting: 3zekiel1/ With nvidia you don't need latest kernel usually, unless you absolutely need another feature.

It doesn't matter what you need it for (some new hardware or whatever). Nvidia simply doesn't guarantee to work with recent kernels. AMD does. So clearly the situation is reverse. AMD provide drivers for kernels seamlessly. Nvidia provide one you need to build through dkms without guarantee that it will work.


Last edited by Shmerl on 2 December 2020 at 6:38 pm UTC
PJ Dec 2, 2020
@3zekiel : yeah, I know... and I've tried. And it sucks big time. IMO there's no sense using Wayland session on Nvidia atm. Also I don't think it is the devs that should bend the knee. It is Nvidia who should adhere to the standard that has been clearly laid out. The only (unrealistic tbh) hope I have is that Wayland switches to Vulkan (which from what I've heard is at least possible since some missing pieces were added).

@Shmerl: yeah, I totally got it. But the question was whether there are any reasons to go with Nvidia - and I've given those :) .
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