Nvidia’s RTX 30 Series is already shaping up to be a real success. The unprecedented levels of demand already seen suggest it could quickly surpass sales of the 20 Series. It also seems that Nvidia predicted the demand well in advance and has big plans for Ampere. According to Gigabyte leaks obtained by Videocardz, there are quite a few other product models Nvidia has yet to announce including the RTX 3060. While the 3060 may not come as a surprise, the high-VRAM variants of the 3080 and 3070 models are interesting.
The leak mentions 20 GB 3080 models and 16 GB 3070s, which are double the VRAM of the base models. Why Nvidia would do this is an interesting question to ask. Games still don’t even come close to that amount of VRAM usage. When it comes to advanced tasks though, professionals will often take all the memory they can get.
Image credit: VideoCardz.
Taking that into consideration, we could potentially be seeing more Titan-style cards that are not designed with gamers primarily in mind. The demand for powerful workstations is constantly growing, and with more professionals also enjoying gaming after hours, these could prove to be cheaper alternatives to the pricey Titans/3090s. This could also improve long term availability for gamers, as professionals would have clear alternatives to choose from.
Thwarting an arch rival
Pivoting to AMD, we’re also familiar with some rumors that suggest RDNA 2-based cards could offer more VRAM than Nvidia, but at lower prices. This could signal a prepared response from Nvidia for that eventuality. Prominent industry leaker @Coreteks suggested that AMD could have a new 16 GB model coming around $550-$600 USD with an 8 GB version at $499 USD. Considering that Nvidia holds the competitive advantage with its Micron GDDR6X memory, it could start a real price war soon. It’s still too early to say for sure how these products will apply to us as consumers. Once we hear from AMD on October 28 about RDNA 2, we should have a good idea of how competitive next generation performance will actually be.
(credit: Nvidia)
As far as the RTX 3060 goes, the rumored specs suggest it could perform admirably for its class. Considering the generational performance leaps we’ve seen from the other cards in the RTX 30 Series, it could easily outperform the 2080 Super. Furthermore, the 2060 Super retailed for $399 USD. If Nvidia matches that pricing this time around, the 3060 will be tough to beat. Of course AMD has yet to reveal its new lineup, and we know very little about it. Nvidia is likely waiting just the same as us before it decides how to market the 3060.
The Gigabyte leaks for the RTX 3060 and other Nvidia RTX 30 Series models show that the GPU industry will only grow increasingly complex and competitive. AMD, Nvidia, and even Intel are all about to heat things up very soon.
Published: Sep 21, 2020 06:00 pm