Let’s step out of our “mining isn’t a thing” bubble real quick to address hash rates: All NVIDIA gaming cards produced now, save the 3090, are “ hash limited,” meaning they have their mining potential impeded as a way to dissuade folks from taking away GPUs from gamers. For those with older flagship cards like the 1080 Ti or Titan Xp, the difference will be even more pronounced, although the 3080 still makes a lot of sense as a cheaper upgrade there if you can find one. Given the 3080 Ti has more memory than the 2080 Ti, those extremely fringe cases are over, and with the increased cores we should be looking at a large gap in performance generationally. We don’t have real-world figures yet, but the 3080 already outperforms the 2080 Ti in almost every situation. The 3090 is definitely a more viable “halo” card for flush gamers than that ever was.įor those who do own a 2080 Ti and want “the best” - so long as the best doesn’t cost $1,500 - the 3080 Ti will be a meaningful upgrade across the board. Things differ at the rainbow-wrapped Aventador end of the equation, as the 3090 at $1,499 has the same use-case as the 20-series RTX Titan, which for some reason launched at $2,499. Those looking for high-end performance at a somewhat reasonable price can pick up a 3080 at $699, the same price as last generation’s 2080, while idiots like me who are willing to pay 40% more for a tiny uptick in performance can grab the 3080 Ti in the same price range that the 2080 Ti launched in. The value decisions facing gamers now are pretty similar to when I was deciding to become a 2080 Ti owner last generation. That was already the case due to how well the 3080 performs, but there’s a certain type of gamer who can’t help but buy the best - the 3080 Ti gets so close that even they might be swayed. (Specifically, the press materials have lots of comparisons to the 2080 Ti.) That makes a lot of sense: you’re likely, in games, to get extremely close to the 3090’s performance, which, given the price differential, means the 3090 only really makes sense to professionals. What does this all mean, then? NVIDIA has made clear that the target audience for the 3080 Ti is gamers. *This figure isn’t actually the memory clock - it’s the effective memory speed - but who are we to argue with NVIDIA? This puts it very close to the 3090 in terms of memory bandwidth, although obviously it has only half of the actual memory capacity, which could rule it out for professionals like 3D animators and those who work with complex video projects. The 3080 Ti, as you’d expect, sits somewhere between, pairing 12GB of 3080-like 9,500MHz memory with a 3090-like 384-bit bus. (You derive these numbers, which aren’t really comparable to anything but RTX 30-series GPUs, by multiplying the number of cores by their max clock speed, and then multiplying that by the number of operations each core can handle per clock.) So, the 3080 Ti has about 96 percent of the power of the 3090, while the 3080 has about 84 percent.Īs hinted at, memory is where the cards really differ: The 3090 has 24GB of 9,750MHz* GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, while the 3080 has 10GB of 9,500MHz GDDR6X on a narrower 320-bit bus. For rasterization - putting pixels on a screen - the RTX 3080 has 29.8 teraflops of power, the RTX 3080 Ti has 34.1 and the RTX 3090 has 35.6. We’ll have to review the 3080 Ti to discern its real-world performance, but we can do some basic math to get an idea of where the Ti sits. Problems solved!īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. The new RTX 3070 Ti will cost $599, and fills the first hole as a fairly mild upgrade over the RTX 3070, while the RTX 3080 Ti sits neatly between the 3080 and the super-pricey 3090 at $1,199. Given, historically, the best selling cards are the ones that go for around $250, the most glaring hole remains gaping, but there are other important price points unfilled: The $500-$698 range and every price point between $699 and $1,499. reality: For desktop PCs, NVIDIA sells the RTX 3060 for $329, the 3060 Ti for $399, the RTX 3070 for $499, the RTX 3080 for $699 and the RTX 3090 for $1,499. Today at Computex in Taipei, a couple of those gaps have been filled by the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti.įirst, a quick refresher on where we're at in this alt. Even in that alternative reality where you can buy a GPU without hassle, NVIDIA has some pretty large holes in its product lineup right now. Let's pretend, for a second, that the GPU market isn't a trash fire of scalpers, miners and overpriced GT 1030s.
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