Yesterday NVIDIA announced its latest GPU’s – the Geforce RTX 30 Series – featuring ‘Ampere’ architecture to offer massive boosts in performance. But what are the specification differences between the three new cards and how do those compare with the current generation?
In the new 30 Series line, there is the GeForce RTX 3070, GeForce RTX 3080 and the colossal GeForce RTX 3090, retail prices starting from £469, £649 and £1,399 respectively.
First up how do each of the cards stack up against one another?
| GeForce RTX 3090 |
GeForce RTX 3080 |
GeForce RTX 3070 |
||
| GPU Engine Specs: | NVIDIA CUDA Cores | 10496 | 8704 | 5888 |
| | Boost Clock (GHz) | 1.70 | 1.71 | 1.73 |
| Memory Specs: | Standard Memory Config | 24 GB GDDR6X | 10 GB GDDR6X | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| | Memory Interface Width | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit |
| Technology Support: | Ray Tracing Cores | 2nd Generation | 2nd Generation | 2nd Generation |
| | Tensor Cores | 3rd Generation | 3rd Generation | 3rd Generation |
| | NVIDIA Architecture | Ampere | Ampere | Ampere |
| | Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA DLSS | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | PCI Express Gen 4 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA GeForce Experience | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Ansel | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA FreeStyle | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA ShadowPlay | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Highlights | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA G-SYNC® | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | Game Ready Drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Studio Drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA GPU Boost |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA NVLink (SLI-Ready) | 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 |
| Display Support: | Maximum Digital Resolution | 7680×4320 | 7680×4320 | 7680×4320 |
| | 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 |
| Founders Edition Card Dimensions: | 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 |
| Founders Edition Thermal Power Specs: | Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) | 93 | 93 | 93 |
| | Graphics Card Power (W) | 350 | 320 | 220 |
| | Recommended System Power (W) | 750 | 750 | 650 |
| | Supplementary Power Connectors | 2x PCIe 8-pin | 2x PCIe 8-pin | 1x PCIe 8-pin |
With the GeForce RTX 3080 arriving first on 17th September you’re possibly tempted in upgrading if you have a 9 or 10 Series model so here’s a handy side by side spec list.
| RTX 30 Series | RTX 20 Series | GTX 10 Series | GTX 9 Series | ||
| NVIDIA Architecture | Architecture Name | Ampere | Turing | Pascal | Maxwell |
| | Streaming Multiprocessors | 2x FP32 | 1x FP32 | 1x FP32 | 1x FP32 |
| | Ray Tracing Cores | Gen 2 | Gen 1 | – | – |
| | Tensor Cores (AI) | Gen 3 | Gen 2 | – | – |
| | Memory | Up to 24 GB GDDR6X | Up to 11 GB GDDR6 | Up to 11 GB GDDR5X | Up to 6 GB GDDR5 |
| | NVIDIA DLSS | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Platform | NVIDIA Reflex | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Broadcast | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| | NVIDIA GeForce Experience | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | Game Ready Drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Studio Drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
| | NVIDIA ShadowPlay | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Highlights | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Ansel | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | NVIDIA Freestyle | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| | VR Ready | Yes | Yes | GTX 1060 or higher | GTX 970 or higher |
| Additional Features | PCIe | Gen 4 | Gen 3 | Gen 3 | Gen 3 |
| | NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) | Gen 7 | Gen 7 | Gen 6 | Gen 5 |
| | NVIDIA Decoder (NVDEC) | Gen 5 | Gen 4 | Gen 3 | Gen 2 |
| | DX12 Ultimate | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| | Video Outputs | HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a | HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4a | HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4a | HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2 |
The entire range will be out by October, ready for some epic Star Wars: Squadrons sessions hopefully. For further updates on NVIDIA products for VR, keep reading VRFocus.
