nVidia 3090 reviews thread

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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Written:


Video:

 
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Stuka87

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Dec 10, 2010
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Here is one from LTT, looks like first reviews are 8K only?

EDIT: And now after watching it, its totally a paid advertisement. Which is whatever, but no 'review' content in it.

 
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Heartbreaker

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Apr 3, 2006
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Don't like LTT videos to start with, so paid one is an extra waste of time.

Marques Brownlee doesn't appear to be sponsored, but it will be like the early 3080 video from Digital Foundry, it's a NVidia controlled conditions video, so of marginal use.

Not sure how to feel about this 8K push. I think it's completely silly and irrelevant overkill. But I guess if they actually convince people to buy into it, it will probably push down the pricing of lowly 1440p where I want to be.
 

Kenmitch

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Oct 10, 1999
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Maybe the reviewers will exploit the 10GB's on 3080 to show it in a better light, but currently it isn't looking much better.

 
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Fallen Kell

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Oct 9, 1999
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Don't like LTT videos to start with, so paid one is an extra waste of time.

Marques Brownlee doesn't appear to be sponsored, but it will be like the early 3080 video from Digital Foundry, it's a NVidia controlled conditions video, so of marginal use.

Not sure how to feel about this 8K push. I think it's completely silly and irrelevant overkill. But I guess if they actually convince people to buy into it, it will probably push down the pricing of lowly 1440p where I want to be.
The 8K push is simply because there are TV's out with it. It is absolutely idiotic for a computer monitor resolution at this time unless you have a 65"+ monitor and are within a foot of the screen (which would make using the screen space a pain in the neck if you ask me from having to constantly move your neck around to view it all).

8K might have some benefits on VR, but there is no hardware to my knowledge that would even use 2x4K (one per eye). The real issue for VR at any resolution, especially higher ones is one of frame-rate/refresh. I don't think even hdmi 2.1 has the bandwidth for 2x4K at 120Hz, and we certainly do not have a graphics card that is capable of that (even the new ones) at this time. I think we are still 5-6 years away from that kind of performance.
 

Heartbreaker

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Maybe the reviewers will exploit the 10GB's on 3080 to show it in a better light, but currently it isn't looking much better.


Not a surprise given the FE power constraints. Lots of AIB cards will be 400W+, so should be able to get up to 20% more performance out of the 20% more functional units the card has.
 

swilli89

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Mar 23, 2010
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Not a surprise given the FE power constraints. Lots of AIB cards will be 400W+, so should be able to get up to 20% more performance out of the 20% more functional units the card has.

We are seeing the effects of NVIDIA using a revised Samsung 10nm process versus TSMC's much better 7nm process. They are more or less up against both thermal and power limits and die size of these chips is more or less maxed out.

The fact that the 3090 offers such a minimal amount of uplift versus 3080 suggests Ampere is maxed out as-is. That leaves price and memory (more or less useless at current shader performance, except in niche 4k games) as the only levers NVIDIA can utilize until either a re-spin or their next generation.

Since A100 is the same architecture as A102, and it has been fabbed at TSMC for many months tells me NVIDIA may pull A102 and A104 to TSMC sometime next year. Its especially likely considering TSMC will see 7nm capacity open up as it switches some large customers to 5nm.

A100 is vastly superior to A102 and A104 in terms of transistor density and power efficiency, so we could extrapolate a potential 4000 series respin based on that.
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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We are seeing the effects of NVIDIA using a revised Samsung 10nm process versus TSMC's much better 7nm process. They are more or less up against both thermal and power limits and die size of these chips is more or less maxed out.

The fact that the 3090 offers such a minimal amount of uplift versus 3080 suggests Ampere is maxed out as-is. That leaves price and memory (more or less useless at current shader performance, except in niche 4k games) as the only levers NVIDIA can utilize until either a re-spin or their next generation.

Since A100 is the same architecture as A102, and it has been fabbed at TSMC for many months tells me NVIDIA may pull A102 and A104 to TSMC sometime next year. Its especially likely considering TSMC will see 7nm capacity open up as it switches some large customers to 5nm.

A100 is vastly superior to A102 and A104 in terms of transistor density and power efficiency, so we could extrapolate a potential 4000 series respin based on that.

Or with Dennard scaling largely dead, we are just seeing the power requirements of running 28 Billion transistors at 1.7GHz boost clock.
 
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GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006
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Ah, the sweet smell of GPU season is in the air.

The 3090 was never even in the realm of possibility for a purchase from me, so it will be entertaining to see the card really push the bounds of what we thought possible or crash and burn... its all the same from where I'm sitting so long as the reviews dissect the results a bit and give some context / keep it entertaining :p
 

mohit9206

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Jul 2, 2013
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I mean it is shocking that in gaming at 4K 3090 will only be about 10-15% faster. This is the worst gaming marketed card in Nvidia history in value. I don't think it has ever happened in the past where a card cost double the previous step down and offered only 10% more gaming performance? Even with 24GB ram which will be useless for gaming for the next few years, 3090 should have not cost more than $1200 even with the Halo card tax. I hope no one buys this for gaming even if you can afford one. Rather buy 3080 and donate the rest to charity.
 

Qwertilot

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Nov 28, 2013
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It isn't a gaming card, not really. Hence the rubbish value proposition & the giant amount of ram.

This one is for compute/deep learning work stations. It'll sell very well there.

Also to some people who seem to need the very fastest for some reason.
 
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AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
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It isn't a gaming card, not really. Hence the rubbish value proposition & the giant amount of ram.

This one is for compute/deep learning work stations. It'll sell very well there.

Also to some people who seem to need the very fastest for some reason.

Well from NVIDIA themselves


For gamers pushing the limits, the GeForce RTX 3090 is also the first GPU that lets you connect, play, capture, and watch in 8K HDR. That’s an insane 4x the pixels of 4K and 16x the pixels of 1080p.

For 4K gaming, the GeForce RTX 3090 is about 10-15% faster on average than the GeForce RTX 3080, and up to 50% faster than the TITAN RTX.
 

insertcarehere

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Jan 17, 2013
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I mean it is shocking that in gaming at 4K 3090 will only be about 10-15% faster. This is the worst gaming marketed card in Nvidia history in value. I don't think it has ever happened in the past where a card cost double the previous step down and offered only 10% more gaming performance? Even with 24GB ram which will be useless for gaming for the next few years, 3090 should have not cost more than $1200 even with the Halo card tax. I hope no one buys this for gaming even if you can afford one. Rather buy 3080 and donate the rest to charity.

What were you expecting? Nvidia themselves explicitly marketed it as a Titan replacement, hence the huge amounts of fast memory and support for multi-gpu, Titan's have never been good value for money since the very beginning, why would that change now?
 

coercitiv

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Jan 24, 2014
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What were you expecting? Nvidia themselves explicitly marketed it as a Titan replacement
"Explicitly" eh? Is that an euphemism for 8K gaming demos on MKBHD and LTT mainstream audience channels? Think about the history of the Titan if not about the implication of changing nomenclature back towards gaming codes.
  • up until Turing they marketed Titans as ultimate gaming cards with a professional twist.
  • with Turing they changed Titan to a professional only brand, even though their initial launch marketing materials did slip the occasional gaming reference. In the end the message was clear: "designed for researchers, developers and creators."
  • one gen later they bring a Titan specced card on the market, but they use gaming nomenclature instead.... and they show it is as gaming class GPU to the masses
The trained eye will know a Titan replacement when presented with one, but Nvidia isn't explicitly saying anything regarding the 3090. It's the ultimate card 10 times less expensive than the luxury display it powers. Whoever you are, you want one.
 
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Sable

Golden Member
Jan 7, 2006
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Don't like LTT videos to start with, so paid one is an extra waste of time.

Marques Brownlee doesn't appear to be sponsored, but it will be like the early 3080 video from Digital Foundry, it's a NVidia controlled conditions video, so of marginal use.

Not sure how to feel about this 8K push. I think it's completely silly and irrelevant overkill. But I guess if they actually convince people to buy into it, it will probably push down the pricing of lowly 1440p where I want to be.
Of course it's sponsored. Otherwise you wouldn't be watching it right now.