Question 'Ampere'/Next-gen gaming uarch speculation thread

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Ottonomous

Senior member
May 15, 2014
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How much is the Samsung 7nm EUV process expected to provide in terms of gains?
How will the RTX components be scaled/developed?
Any major architectural enhancements expected?
Will VRAM be bumped to 16/12/12 for the top three?
Will there be further fragmentation in the lineup? (Keeping turing at cheaper prices, while offering 'beefed up RTX' options at the top?)
Will the top card be capable of >4K60, at least 90?
Would Nvidia ever consider an HBM implementation in the gaming lineup?
Will Nvidia introduce new proprietary technologies again?

Sorry if imprudent/uncalled for, just interested in the forum member's thoughts.
 

x_marX

Member
Apr 23, 2020
61
6
41
I need to replace my GTX 1060 soon and I was looking at the 3070. But 8GB!!!
Is it enough for 1080/1440 resolution with the new texture heavy games?
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,110
3,028
136
www.teamjuchems.com
I need to replace my GTX 1060 soon and I was looking at the 3070. But 8GB!!!
Is it enough for 1080/1440 resolution with the new texture heavy games?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hear a lot of "don't worry about it, just upscale from a lower resolution via DLSS" but I'd like to think a brand new $500 card could push 1440p natively for a few years at least.

Answer varies from "we'll see" to "it's probably fine" to "yeesh, less than a console?"

I have a sneaky suspicion your detail slider might stop at "High" and not "Ultra" though in the AAA titles that come out starting this fall and the next couple of years.
 
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ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
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While I was watching some 3000-series videos last night, one thing came to mind... I kind of also care about the low-end. It may sound odd, because I -- like many of you -- focus on gaming with the cards, but I'm still using a 1050 Ti in my server as a transcode card. So, a card that I'd like to see this generation would be....
  • Low-End (1050 Ti range)
  • Up-to-Date NVENC (No 2050 shenanigans here)
  • No extra power connector (Like the 1050 Ti)
  • High or Unlocked NVENC Session Count
The low-end isn't exactly a lucrative market, so I don't have my hopes up.

I 100% agree with you. I'd love to see something in the sub $175 market, preferably $125 range that fits the criteria you listed above and is roughly as fast as a 1660TI. I think it's doable but only if it's a non RTX GPU. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
 

CakeMonster

Golden Member
Nov 22, 2012
1,384
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When the next generation arrives (4xxx), whether that be in 12, 18, or 24 months, the 8/10Gb configuration will be very convenient for NVidia in persuading people to upgrade already, whereas they normally would have waited another year or so.
 
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Dribble

Platinum Member
Aug 9, 2005
2,076
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I 100% agree with you. I'd love to see something in the sub $175 market, preferably $125 range that fits the criteria you listed above and is roughly as fast as a 1660TI. I think it's doable but only if it's a non RTX GPU. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
DLSS is the secret to the low end as they give those cards a free resolution upgrade. I think we will get the full feature set all the way down to the 50 cards. e.g you'll almost certainly be able to play cyberpunk with ray tracing on a 3050 at 1080p because it'll only need to render at 540 internally and use DLSS to upscale.
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,554
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I 100% agree with you. I'd love to see something in the sub $175 market, preferably $125 range that fits the criteria you listed above and is roughly as fast as a 1660TI. I think it's doable but only if it's a non RTX GPU. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
TBH I'd be happy if either camp updated their basic 2D display cards in the $50 market this generation too. I know IGPs have gutted the low end market, but if you are running a CPU without one it's a tragedy you need to dump $40-50 to pick up a 710 or worse a freaking HD5450. I don't think it'll happen though.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
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I 100% agree with you. I'd love to see something in the sub $175 market, preferably $125 range that fits the criteria you listed above and is roughly as fast as a 1660TI. I think it's doable but only if it's a non RTX GPU. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.

I wouldn't be too surprised if we see something, and that's mostly because that sort of GPU would also likely see far more use in laptops instead of discrete cards. So, even though the low-end market discrete is not likely as lucrative for Nvidia, the mobile market probably is a bit better.

Although, out of my list, the one thing that I doubt that we'll see is Nvidia lifting the NVENC stream restrictions... that is unless they start catching some major flak for doing it. The restrictions are actually driver enforced, which is why some people running Plex servers would use hacked drivers that removed the restriction. In that case, you were only limited by the memory required to perform the transcode, and the difference is quite significant too. If I recall, you could easily go from a software limit of 2 streams to a hardware limit of around 10-14 streams.
 
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tajoh111

Senior member
Mar 28, 2005
298
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Pricing on the RTX 3080 shows why 8nm is not really a business blunder and the stock markets reaction is a reflection of this. Nvidia stock is going up and not down.

Because of the cost and supply savings on 8nm, Nvidia is pricing large GPU's a pre finfett levels if we ignore the titanesque rtx 3090.

People are reacting and even hardened team red fans are interested in the RTX 3080 or at the very least have turned silent.

With an 80% increase in performance over a rtx 2080 as seen in digital foundary, the 3080 at $699 is offering better price to performance than 5700xt while being a highend card where price to performance typically is bad. Using techpower charts, we are getting 2.14x the performance of the 5700xt at 1.75 the cost at 4k.

Even the 5700 regular doesn't have a good value proposition in comparison. The RTX 3080 is 2.41x faster for 2x money. Similar things can be said of the rtx 3070.

What we are seeing is price to performance is moving forward again and even AMD fans should be happy with this.

If TSMC 7nm is priced as high as AMD fans stated(to justify 5700xt pricing), big navi is going to be in a poor position when it comes to a price war with Nvidia.

Lastly, AMD matching RTX 3080 performance is not a given or easy. 2.14x 5700xt performance at 300watts is equivalent to 1.61x increase in performance per watt which is above Navi2's stated performance per watt increase.
 

tviceman

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2008
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Nvidia decided to play into AMD's strategy of pushing their cards well past the perf/w curve. There is simply no way AMD will match the RTX 3080 - it's more than twice as fast as the 5700 XT.

The best big Navi card will slot in between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070. The question is if AMD will be able to play ball on prices, but it is going to be tough.
 

repoman0

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2010
4,442
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I've stretched out my 1070 to a five year service life, well past what I usually do for GPUs .. going to finally upgrade and grab a 3080 in a couple weeks. 10 GB seems kind of low though, I would have liked to see 12 or 16 so that I could be sure I'd get another five years or more out of it.
 
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Val_

Member
Nov 24, 2012
29
0
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Never in my hardware buying history had the 2080 ti been such a steal. I used them for close to 3 years and sold them all for USD$1200 to $1300 which means it costs me almost nothing to own them during this time period. The proceed is used to buy the Canon EOS R5 8K Hybrid DSLR and still have enough left to buy the 3080 and add some cash for the 3090 (both pre-ordered)

Hi ! How is that even possible ? I’m really curious… You sold the cards for almost the same price at which you bought them ??? Why would someone buy a used card for almost the same price as new after such a long time ? o_O (By the way, I think you meant two years and not three, because I’ve just checked and the 2080 Ti was launched on September 27, 2018)

Is that something that only happens for very high-end cards ? (I’ve only ever bought new cards and for ≅ 500 USD in my currency AT MOST)
 

DDH

Member
May 30, 2015
168
168
111
Pricing on the RTX 3080 shows why 8nm is not really a business blunder and the stock markets reaction is a reflection of this. Nvidia stock is going up and not down.

Because of the cost and supply savings on 8nm, Nvidia is pricing large GPU's a pre finfett levels if we ignore the titanesque rtx 3090.

People are reacting and even hardened team red fans are interested in the RTX 3080 or at the very least have turned silent.

With an 80% increase in performance over a rtx 2080 as seen in digital foundary, the 3080 at $699 is offering better price to performance than 5700xt while being a highend card where price to performance typically is bad. Using techpower charts, we are getting 2.14x the performance of the 5700xt at 1.75 the cost at 4k.

Even the 5700 regular doesn't have a good value proposition in comparison. The RTX 3080 is 2.41x faster for 2x money. Similar things can be said of the rtx 3070.

What we are seeing is price to performance is moving forward again and even AMD fans should be happy with this.

If TSMC 7nm is priced as high as AMD fans stated(to justify 5700xt pricing), big navi is going to be in a poor position when it comes to a price war with Nvidia.

Lastly, AMD matching RTX 3080 performance is not a given or easy. 2.14x 5700xt performance at 300watts is equivalent to 1.61x increase in performance per watt which is above Navi2's stated performance per watt increase.
This last paragraph i don't think is accurate, time will tell of course.
But the 5700xt has performance equal to a 2070 super, within a few % +- depending on most games. You can see see from nvidias own charts the 3080 is not equal to 2x 2070s.

Also we know though openvr benchmark AMD already have a GPU that is above a 2080ti by 30%. This is already in the ballpark figure of the 3080 (35% uplift over the 2080ti, based on DF vid)

The question becomes can they compete with the price. I was under the impression they would use hmb2 for the top cards, still might, but where would that land price wise. A 16gb hbm2 80cu rdna2 card wouldn't be had for 699 i wouldn't have thought. Maybe 799. It would need to be a little bit faster than the 3080 though.

Last point though is NVIDIA have given AMD a bit more tgp room to work with. Perhaps that is where the rage mode tuning parameter comes in, unlocking power limits over 300w if needed to boost performance above the 3080
 

sze5003

Lifer
Aug 18, 2012
14,177
622
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Monitors better show up soon then. I've been looking for at 4K 32" and they're hardly available with any *sync options.
My buddy got a 43 inch 120hz LG OLED 4k monitor recently, it has gsync. It's literally the same thing as my LG C8 OLED 55 inch TV minus the gsync. Other options will definitely show up in the coming months.
 

CastleBravo

Member
Dec 6, 2019
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The question becomes can they compete with the price. I was under the impression they would use hmb2 for the top cards, still might, but where would that land price wise. A 16gb hbm2 80cu rdna2 card wouldn't be had for 699 i wouldn't have thought. Maybe 799. It would need to be a little bit faster than the 3080 though.

Radeon VII was $700 with 16 GB of HBM. I bet both TSMC 7nm and HBM are more affordable now than they were in early 2019.
 
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GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
6,715
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I got most of my 2080TI's for $1000 or so. $650 (current that I see on ebay) after 2 years does not seem that big of a bargain.

The RTX 2xxx series sweet spot (for gamers IMO) is the 2080 Super. Only 15-20% off the 2080Ti, relatively new launch, and used prices are dropping into the $300-400 territory which IMO will likely have it above the 3060 by a fair margin for likely a lower price.

Coming from a 980 TI it would be a massive jump across the board, specs and features.
 

DDH

Member
May 30, 2015
168
168
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Radeon VII was $700 with 16 GB of HBM. I bet both TSMC 7nm and HBM are more affordable now than they were in early 2019.
True but this was when those chips came from the instinct line i believe. So they were defective dies that had no purpose, might as well sell them for a few hundred.

This time around however an rdna2 chip with hbm2 would be only for gaming line up afaik
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
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The RTX 2xxx series sweet spot (for gamers IMO) is the 2080 Super. Only 15-20% off the 2080Ti, relatively new launch, and used prices are dropping into the $300-400 territory which IMO will likely have it above the 3060 by a fair margin for likely a lower price.

Coming from a 980 TI it would be a massive jump across the board, specs and features.

Yeah man, and if you move the 980Ti with prejudice fast I bet you can get $150+ for it. I mean, there is a decent chance of it. It's got the 6GB memory effect working for it, which means it *must* be worth more than any 4GB card available, right?!? :)

If you could pull that off for ~$200 seems like a no-brainer decision to me.
 

beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
5,208
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Nvidia is pricing large GPU's a pre finfett levels

Only people not long in the game can really be that enthusiastic about this. It's at best a step towards more sane prices while still being relatively high taking into account the 10GB RAM and high power use. Remember, the 290x was called terrible by NV fans while being compettive in performance, vram and price (wuickly below $400). the full flagship used to be $500 and even with inflation $699 isn't that great especially since the actual flagship costs far more.

It's only great because the last 5 years have seen extreme price gouging on both sides. AMD couldn't deliver more and was happy NV didn't price them out of the market and on top of that we had consoles with very outdated CPU and mediocre GPU.

Now we get very good consoles and AMD is in the game again. Competition. That is what is lowering prices not NVs choice of process tech. Look at NV margins how they grew during the last 5 years. The high prices weren't due to finfets they were to make more money.
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,554
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Yeah, $650 for an eBay 2080 Ti doesn't seem like a steal at all, but a $300 2080 Super? Be interesting to see where the 3070 actually ends up relative to the 2080S.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,722
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Nvidia decided to play into AMD's strategy of pushing their cards well past the perf/w curve. There is simply no way AMD will match the RTX 3080 - it's more than twice as fast as the 5700 XT.

The best big Navi card will slot in between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070. The question is if AMD will be able to play ball on prices, but it is going to be tough.
Big words as always. We'll see.
 

viivo

Diamond Member
May 4, 2002
3,344
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*Fans self* Oh lawd those RTX 2xxx series prices on Ebay... must... resist *fANS self harder*

Ebay just isn't worth the hassle anymore. I'd glady pay $50+ more for the same thing here or on Amazon. Plus, all the obvious scam listing drown out the few legitimate ones.

Looking for a 2080S on ebay sucks - every time I see a good price I get excited and jump in only to see a user with 0 feedback, or a misleading title.