This year is a big one for new generations of gaming tech. Not only are both Microsoft and Sony gearing up to launch new consoles, but Nvidia has now revealed its latest generation of GPUs with the GeForce RTX 30 series, the beefiest of which can play games in 8K resolution at 60 frames per second (fps).
As usual, there are three flavors of GeForce RTX 30. The entry level GPU is the RTX 3070, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 5,888 CUDA cores (processors that can work in parallel). Next in line is the flagship GeForce RTX 3080, with 10 GB of GGDR6X memory and 8,704 CUDA cores. And at the top of the line sits the beastly RTX 3090, with an utterly ridiculous 24 GB of GGDR6X memory and 10,496 CUDA cores.
The whole lineup is built on the new Ampere architecture, which apparently offers double the performance and 1.9 times the power efficiency of Turing, which the previous generation was based on. In fact, Nvidia goes as far as to claim that this is the greatest-ever generation leap that GeForce GPUs have ever made.
These cards of course let gamers crank their graphical settings up to maximum, but the key talking point is improved ray tracing. This light rendering technique maps out the path of light rays throughout a virtual environment and how they interact with objects, producing much more realistic shadows, reflections, ambient occlusion and other visual effects.
Nvidia also announced a few games that will soon feature ray tracing, including Fortnite, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion.
In other numbers, the RTX 3070 is faster than last generation’s RTX 2080 Ti, but is less than half the price. The RTX 3080 is twice as fast as the 2080, and can render games in 4K resolution at 60 fps with ray tracing on. Meanwhile the RTX 3090 is an absolute monster, running 50 percent faster at 4K than the Titan RTX and claiming the crown for the first gaming GPU to run 8K at 60 fps. Very few people even have the monitors and other equipment to display that kind of visual prowess yet, so consider it future-proofing more than anything else for now.
The GeForce RTX 3070 starts at US$499, and will be available in October, the GeForce RTX 3080 starts at $699 and launches on September 17, and the GeForce RTX 3090 starts at $1,499 and will launch on September 24.
The RTX 3080 is broken down in the video below.
Source: Nvidia
