Nvidia Ampere Next Generation Graphics Cards: Better Routing, Lower Prices!

The rumor mill offers tons of information – but do discounts.

A whole slew of fresh rumors just hit the net about new Nvidia’s next generation Ampere graphics cards that promise huge gains in tracing the best, along with the prospect of cheaper flagship models.

Information comes from Wccftechand we need to be very clear that most of the information disclosed seems to be snatched and lightweight – even the tech site itself emphasizes the fact that all information should be taken with a pinch of salt. But you might be tempted to take everything at face value, and we won’t blame you …

In any case, the following information comes from Nvidia’s talks with graphics card manufacturers, where the company provided some details on what to expect from Ampere GPUs.

So what are we (supposedly) waiting for? RTX 3000 graphics cards (as they are likely to be called) will go into release in the first half of 2020, will be able to offer even more video memory, as well as increase the clock speed by 100-200 MHz relative to modern Turing graphics cards, along with improving energy efficiency.

Those are the advantages of Samsung’s 7nm EUV process technology, which Ampere chips rely on, according to the report, next-generation graphics cards will also offer more frame buffers than Turing. (Note that it is unclear if the Ampere graphics cards will be manufactured by Samsung based on this 7nm process, as all the rumors surrounding this are quite confusing and rely on an old Nvidia announcement in the past).

Some of the tricky part about the speculation is that next-gen cards promise further voltage drops relative to Turing, possibly below 1.0V, potentially dampening overclocking prospects.

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT RAYS

Nvidia is also likely to double the potential ray tracing performance with RTX 3000 graphics cards, and considering how much the company has invested in existing graphics cards, this is hardly surprising.

The main problem with ray tracing right now is that enabling complex visuals is slowing performance, so Nvidia is promising “massive” improvements in that direction. The RTX 3000 series will get ray tracing cores (RT Cores) that will run faster while reducing power consumption and are likely much faster given Nvidia’s caveat.

However, it is one thing to promise huge performance gains and increase FPS in traced games, and quite another to implement all of this.

Wccftech notes that along with the development of ray tracing, Ampere will be able to improve the performance of (traditional) rasterization for better gaming performance.

The last piece of speculation that has gone online is perhaps the most interesting – pricing.

We have already discussed in the past that using Samsung’s 7nm EUV technology (if it really is) means that graphics chips will be significantly cheaper to manufacture, which in the long term will make video cards cheaper than the Turing generation.

And then there is good and bad news – all rumored, of course – as the source promises about the same Ampere cost as Turing. Disappointing, but not surprising either.

However, a glimmer of hope is that high-end cards like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti (provided the name is correct) could be slightly cheaper than their Turing counterparts.

Trying to analyze future pricing at the moment is a silly assignment, given that Nvidia will rely on the movement of the graphics card market in 2020. Indeed, AMD is about to offer new graphics cards, including Nvidia Killer, aimed at the high-end GPU segment – which could drive prices down.

On the other hand, it is interesting to hear the intentions and vision of Nvidia’s market at the moment. Additional pressure in favor of price cuts could come from Intel as the company is set to join the graphics card race, possibly as early as mid-2020, although the company will have to surprise the market in order to counter the two well-known manufacturers …

And one of the obvious solutions seems to be a reduction in the cost of video cards (and this is possible, since Intel is developing a modular system of work, which implies a comfortable way to use multiple GPUs, which will make video card upgrades much more affordable).

Here are the best graphics cards you can buy in 2019.