Nvidia announces is new RTX 3080 GPU, priced at $699 and launching September 17th
Nvidia is unveiling its new GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards today. Nvidia has been teasing these new cards for weeks, and there have also been plenty of leaks before the RTX 3080 was made official today. Based on Nvidia’s new Ampere architecture, the RTX 3080 is designed to succeed the RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti cards with improved performance and ray-tracing support.
Nvidia is promising big performance with the RTX 3080, up to two times that of the RTX 2080, and faster than even Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Ti card. The card will ship with 10GB of G6X memory, and will be priced at $699 when it ships on September 17th.
At the heart of this new GPU is an updated thermal design. Nvidia has created a new pennant-shaped board for its RTX 3080, combined with a new cooling shroud. The new cooling solution is designed to improve airflow and overcome some of the constraints of the cooling solutions that exist on the RTX 2080 today.
It includes a dual fan setup that is designed to improve airflow by more than 55 percent, with promises of much quieter and more efficient cooling. Nvidia is using a bracket exhausting front fan, with a flow through rear fan.
Nvidia is using a new 12-pin connector on its RTX 3000 cards, which is smaller than using two traditional eight-pin connectors. The company will include an adapter that’s compatible with eight-pin cables with its Founders Edition cards. Nvidia has picked a 12-pin connector to allow more space on the board for components and cooling.
Alongside the RTX 3080, Nvidia is also launching a cheaper RTX 2070 priced at $499 on September 17th. This will still be a more capable card than the prior RTX 2080, at a lot less cost.
Developing…