NVIDIA has recently announced their new 2nd generation RTX graphics cards, led by the RTX 3080 as their new flagship GPU. The RTX 30 series cards are powered with NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture and are said to offer “the greatest-ever” generation leap; twice the performance over Turing. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card is more or less going to be the more popular card in the family, starting at $499. Also, NVIDIA also announced the RTX 3090 “BFGPU”, the TITAN RTX replacement. In this article, let’s learn more about the new flagship RTX 3070.
UPDATE: GeForce RTX 3080 Graphics Cards available on Newegg.com here, B&H Photo here
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Graphics Card
I’m not kidding when I said that the RTX 3070 is “faster than 2080 Ti”. NVIDIA said that on their presentation. But we will have to wait for the reviews to go live next month to find out if NVIDIA’s claim is true.
Let me start with some FAQ first, since it’s easier to digest and get the gist out of this new release.
The GeForce RTX 3070 features 5888 CUDA cores with a boost clock speed of 1.73 GHz. It is paired with 8GB GDDR6 memory with a speed of 16Gbps, running on a 256-bit memory interface.
According to NVIDIA’s presentation slides, the RTX 3070 is “faster than 2080 Ti”. There is a note at the bottom saying that it’s an average performance across multiple popular graphics-intensive games at 4K with an Intel i9 CPU. I’m guessing that the RTX 3070 may be faster in some games, while the RTX2080 Ti may be faster in other games. Looking at NVIDIA’s slide, I think the RTX 3070 is more or less similar to the RTX 2080 Ti’s performance. We’ll have to wait until the 1st half of October to find out.
Like I said in the previous question, according to NVIDIA’s presentation, it is faster on average performance across multiple popular graphics-intensive games at 4K. But let’s just see in October when the reviews are out.
Unlike the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, it looks like the RTX 3070 is not that power-hungry. Its graphics card power is 220W and the recommended system power is only 650W.
According to the spec sheet, the recommended PSU for the RTX 3070 is 650W. If you have a lot of components and other peripherals installed in the system that draws power from the PSU, you may need a higher one. I also recommend that you get an 80 Plus certified PSU from a reputable company.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition starts at $499. Expect that custom graphics card from AIB partners will be priced higher. My estimate is around $500 to $600 give or take, depending on the model of the graphics card.
The GeForce RTX 3070 will become available starting October 2020. No specific date yet, unfortunately.
For only $499 and you get an RTX 2080 Ti-level of performance, I think it’s worth it. Remember, the RTX 2080 Ti is originally priced at $999-$1,199. Also, to quote NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang “To all my Pascal gamer friends, it is safe to upgrade now.”.
The GeForce RTX 3070 has three DisplayPort 1.4a out and an HDMI 2.1. NVIDIA removed the USB-Type C for VR headsets and there is no NVLink or SLI bridge. Unfortunately, SLI / multiple-GPU is pretty much dead at this point.
It looks like the RTX 3070 doesn’t have the same cooler design as the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080. Maybe, compared the RTX 3090/3080, the RTX 3070 is not that hot. However, it does look like the design is still based on the “Dual Axial Flow Through Thermals”.
Also, if you are wondering why the 12-pin PCIe power connector is located on the middle-side area of the graphics card, that’s because the PCB of these RTX 30 series cards is smaller or shorter.
Speaking of 12-pin, don’t worry if your PSU doesn’t have a 12-pin PCIe connector. I think the 12-pin is only used by NVIDIA on their Founders Edition cards; and an 8-pin to 12-pin adapter is included. Nevertheless, custom RTX 30 series cards from AIB partners are still using the 8-pin PCIe power connector.
NVIDIA 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, RTX IO offloads dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to the RTX GPU, improving frame rates and enabling near-instantaneous game loading.
- 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. 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 3070 Specifications
| RTX 3090 | RTX 3080 | RTX 3070 | RTX 2080 Ti | RTX 2080 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fab Process | 8nm Samsung | 8nm Samsung | 8nm Samsung | 12nm TSMC | 12nm TSMC |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere | Ampere | Turing | Turing |
| CUDA Cores | 10496 | 8704 | 5888 | 4352 | 2944 |
| Base Clock | 1400 MHz | 1440 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1350 MHz | 1515 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1700 MHz | 1710 MHz | 1730 MHz | 1545 MHZ 1635 MHz (FE) | 1710 MHz 1800 MHz (FE) |
| Memory Size | 24GB | 10GB | 8GB | 11GB | 8GB |
| Memory Type | GDDR6X | GDDR6X | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
| Memory Clock | 19.5 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936.2 GB/s | 760.3 GB/s | 448.0 GB/s | 616 GB/s | 448 GB/s |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 352-bit | 256-bit |
| Max. GPU Temp. | 93° | 93° | 93° | 89° | 88° |
| Power Connectors | 2x 8-pin | 2x 8-pin | 8-pin | 8+8 pin | 6+8 pin |
| Graphics Card Power | 350W | 320W | 220W | 260W (FE) | 225W (FE) |
| Recommended PSU | 750W | 750W | 650W | 650W | 650W |
| Price | $1,499 | $699 | $499 | $999 (reference) $1,199 (FE) | $799 (reference) $699 (FE) |
Are you planning to get an RTX 3070? What brand will you be getting? Or would you rather get the RTX 3080 or RTX 3090 instead?
