GALAX GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 Launched – SG and EX Edition First, HOF Later

With NVIDIA‘s announcement of their new GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs; GALAX launches their new RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070 graphics cards as well. These GPUs are based on the new Ampere architecture and 2nd generation RTX. GALAX’s first wave of RTX 30 series cards will come in the form of “Serious Gaming Edition” or SG and “EX Gamer” series. Where’s the RTX 30 Hall of Fame Edition? We’ll have to wait for that, for now, let’s check out the SG and EX first.

UPDATE: GeForce RTX 3080 Graphics Cards check at Amazon.com here, Newegg.com here, B&H Photo here

GALAX GeForce RTX 30 Series SG Edition

The first wave of GALAX’s RTX 30 series graphics cards is the Serious Gaming (SG) Edition and EX Gamers Series. All RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070 will be available in SG and EX variant. The SG Edition features an all-black design with white highlights. It has a triple-fan cooling solution, but interestingly GALAX added a “1-Clip Booster” feature as you can see from the video below.

Right now we don’t know yet if the 1-clip booster will help in the cooling performance. According to GALAX, the 1-Clip booster fan design “sucks the air out creating a technically-correct push-pull cooling. When this additional fan is used, it can achieve better performance as if a GPU running with a normal backplate.”. I don’t have an idea yet how effective this method is, but we will test it and will let you know once the embargo lifts.

GALAX GeForce RTX 30 EX Gamer Series

GALAX’s EX is divided into two variants; the EX Gamer and the EX. The EX Gamer series features a triple-fan design with RGB lighting in the middle of each fan. The fans feature 11 “WINGS” fan blade that measures 102mm. If I am not mistaken, this is the same fans we saw on GALAX’s RTX 2080 Super we reviewed before.

GALAX will have an RTX 3090 EX Gamer, RTX 3080 EX Gamer and RTX 3070 Gamer variant; and will be available in Black, White and Pink color variants. Meanwhile, the EX Series is similar to the EX Gamer but will only have a dual fan configuration. Only a GALAX RTX 3070 EX will be available. It makes sense since a dual-fan config might not be sufficient for an RTX 3090 and RTX 3080.

GALAX RTX 30 Series SG vs EX Gamer, Which Is Faster?

You might be thinking that the Serious Gamer or SG Edition is the faster graphics card; due to its additional clip-on fan. I thought that as well. But looking at the product pages of GALAX graphics cards, it seems that the EX Gamer graphics cards have higher boost clock speeds compared to the SG variants.

The GALAX EX Gamer cards will also make use of non-reference design PCB. Whereas the SG Edition cards will feature a reference PCB design. EKWB’s GPU water blocks might be compatible with GALAX’s RTX 30 Series SG graphics cards, if true.

GALAX Xtreme Tuner and All New 1-Click Sync

GALAX also announces that their Xtreme Tuner will be available in mobile as well. Now you do not need a dual monitor and exit games when using Xtreme Tuner. The new mobile version allows you to adjust GALAX graphics card more conveniently. With your smartphone, you can easily change the OC settings, RGB lighting, and 1-Click OC.

Speaking of 1-Click OC, GALAX also offers 1-Click Sync for its specific GeForce RTX 30 Series products. Customize your RGB color with Xtreme Tuner, or synchronize with the rest of your system, by connecting the graphics card to +12V RGB header of your motherboard or other RGB control systems, using the included cable.

GALAX RTX 30 Series Pricing and Availability

The GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards are expected to become available on September 17, 2020. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 3090 will become available starting on the 24th. As for the RTX 3070, is expected to be released sometime in October; more or less in the first half of October.

As for the prices of GALAX’s graphics cards, the company has not announced the prices of its cards yet. However, NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 comes with an MSRP of $1,499, the RTX 3080 starts at $699, and the RTX 3070 at $499.

GeForce RTX 3080 Graphics Cards check at Amazon.com here, Newegg.com here, B&H Photo here

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Features

Below are the “cutting-edge” technologies that the new RTX 30 Series GPUs and NVIDIA Ampere architecture have to offer:

• New streaming multiprocessors: The building block for the world’s fastest, most efficient GPU, delivering 2x the FP32 throughput of the previous generation, and 30 Shader-TFLOPS of processing power.
• Second-gen RT Cores: New dedicated RT Cores deliver 2x the throughput of the previous generation, plus concurrent ray tracing and shading and compute, with 58 RT-TFLOPS of processing power.
• Third-gen Tensor Cores: New dedicated Tensor Cores, with up to 2x the throughput of the previous generation, making it faster and more efficient to run AI-powered technologies, like NVIDIA DLSS, and 238 Tensor-TFLOPS of processing power.
• NVIDIA RTX IO: Enables rapid GPU-based loading and game asset decompression, accelerating input/output performance by up to 100x compared with hard drives and traditional storage APIs. In conjunction with Microsoft’s new DirectStorage for Windows API,(1) RTX IO offloads dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to the RTX GPU, improving frame rates and enabling near-instantaneous game loading.
• NVIDIA Broadcast for AI-powered Video and Voice: Turn any room into a home studio with AI-taking your livestreams and video chats to the next level with AI-powered audio and video effects like noise removal, virtual background, and webcam auto frame.
• World’s fastest graphics memory: NVIDIA has worked with Micron to create the world’s fastest discrete graphics memory for the RTX 30 Series, GDDR6X.(2) It provides data speeds of close to 1TB/s system memory bandwidth for graphics card applications, maximizing game and app performance.
• Next-gen process technology: New 8N NVIDIA custom process from Samsung, which allows for higher transistor density and more efficiency.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Specifications