NVIDIA RTX 4090 >2x Faster than the RTX 3090, RTX 4080 Likely to Cost ~$1,000, RTX 4090 ~$3,000 [Rumor]

According to Greymon (Twitter), NVIDIA’s next-gen Ada Lovelace flagship, the GeForce RTX 4090 may be well over 2x faster than the contemporary flagship, the RTX 3090. Considering leaks from reliable sources, this does make sense as Jensen is going overboard with the next generation of GeForce offerings. Let’s dig in and analyze the possible pricing of the next-gen GPUs. 

https://twitter.com/greymon55/status/1436601020298244096

NVIDIA RTX 4080/4090 Performance Targets vs Radeon RX 7800XT/7900XT

• For NVIDIA Lovelace (RTX 4080/4090): From what we know, Lovelace should offer twice as much performance as the contemporary Ampere parts, with an FP32 core count of up to 18,432. The AD102 flagship is rumored to feature 144 SMs distributed across 12 GPCs. That results in a 71% gain in raw compute performance (66 TFLOPs) over the GA102. Add to that the fact that Team Green is leveraging TSMC’s advanced N5 process node for Lovelace, and the resulting frequency boost should net a ~2.2x gain over the RTX 3090.

• For AMD RNDA 3 (RX 7800 XT/7900 XT): We’re looking at six groups of four SIMDs for the Navi 33, resulting in a stream processor count of 7,680. For the chiplet based Navi 31 GPU, double that figure to 15,360 and you’ve got a monster of a graphics card. Considering the sheer increase in compute capabilities, the Infinity Cache will also be increased by 50%, at the very least. This should easily push the overall raster performance of Navi 31 to more than twice as much as the Radeon RX 6900 XT, with Navi 33 beating the RX 6800 XT by 30-50%.
• Overall, it looks like both NVIDIA and AMD will deliver remarkable gains over present RTX 30 and Nave 2x offerings, somewhere in the ~2x range.

Price, TDP and Launch Targets

With the next generation of GeForce graphics cards, we’re not only looking at phenomenal performance targets but also considerable increases to the TDP. According to Greymon and Kopitekimi, the Lovelace-based RTX 4080/4090 will draw as much as 500W of power under load. This is despite the use of one of the most advanced and efficient process nodes on the planet. However, running the numbers kind of adds up. The AD102 flagship is expected to feature 144 SMs/12 GPCs, a gain of 71% in terms of logic compared to the GA102. Even if TSMC’s N5 node is 30% more power-efficient than Samsung’s 8nm LPP node, we’re looking at an increase of at least 80% in hardware units. That should easily result in a power draw at least 30-50% more than the top-end (RTX 3080/3090) Ampere offerings.

The same can be said for the prices of the next generation of graphics cards. The reasons are twofold. For starters, TSMC’s N5 node is quite a bit pricier than Samsung’s 8LPP node. Secondly, the die sizes will also grow despite a node shrink, meaning worse yields and therefore, higher production costs. According to a rough estimate by @GraphicallyChallenged, we can expect the following prices for the RTX 4080/4090:

• RTX 4090 – $2,999
• RTX 4080 Ti – $1,999
• RTX 4080 – $1,199
• RTX 4070 – $799
• RTX 4060 Ti – $499
• RTX 4060 – $399
• RTX 4050 Ti – $329
• RTX 4050 – $279

My personal estimates are as follows:

• RTX 4090 – $2,000
• RTX 4080 Ti – $1,500
• RTX 4080 – $999
• RTX 4070 – $549
• RTX 4060 – $399
• RTX 4050 Ti – $299
• RTX 4050 – $250

Given the increased competition from Intel and AMD next cycle, I don’t believe that NVIDIA will be able to price its RTX 40 series lineup quite as high as some people are expecting. In the end, the performance of rival offerings and the supply chain situation will determine the final figures.

In case you’ve forgotten, there’s also an Ampere refresh planned for launch by the end of the year. The mobile variants for gaming notebooks should also land around the same time. We should see the core counts and bus widths bumped up for the RTX 3060, with the RTX 3070 possibly getting a cut-down variant of the GA102 die. Like last time, the RTX 3080 Super should be a mild upgrade over its non-Super counterpart, and unlike last time, the RTX 3090 is reportedly also getting a Super refresh. We can expect the fully enabled GA102 (or nearly fully enabled for the 3080 Super) die to power the latter. The Radeon RX 7000 (RDNA 3) lineup and the RTX 4080/4090 should launch in Q4 2022.