NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere Gaming Graphics Card Render. (Image Credits: Reddit u/dertpert88)
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card based on the Ampere Gaming GPU has allegedly been benchmarked within the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme benchmark. The graphics card will be one of the several high-end Ampere graphics cards which will be introduced in the coming months with huge boosts in graphics performance over their Turing based predecessors.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere Gaming Graphics Card Allegedly 35% Faster Than GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in 3DMark Time Spy Benchmark
The latest performance details come from Kopite7kimi who also posted rumored performance numbers of the GeForce RTX 3090 / RTX 3080 Ti graphics card yesterday. Today, the same leaker has reported the performance of the GeForce RTX 3080 in the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark and the numbers look insane when compared to the RTX 2080 Ti.
As per the rumor, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 features a Time Spy Extreme graphics score that is almost 8600 points. The same leaker also pointed to almost 10,000 points for the RTX 3090 / 3080 Ti in the same benchmark. This would suggest that the performance gap between the flagship part and the RTX 3080 would only be around 16% whereas the difference between the RTX 2080 and Ti was around 25% in the Time Spy benchmark but in games, the difference was just 20%.
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When compared to the Turing cards, the GeForce RTX 3080 looks to be around 35% faster than a stock GeForce RTX 2080 Ti which would make it the biggest performance jump over the previous generation Ti offering. We also compared the score to my heavily overclocked RTX 2080 Ti graphics card (Lightning Z) and found the difference to end up around 12%.
Considering that most Geforce RTX 2080 Ti’s feature unlocked boost clocks, the actual difference between the RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti could be around 20-25% which is more in line with the previous statement from the same leaker who reported the performance jump of the RTX 3080 over the RTX 2080 Ti being around 20 percent.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere Gaming Graphics Card Alleged Specifications
Moving on to the specs for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, the rumors report that the card will be featuring the GA102-200-KD-A1 SKU. This cut down SKU will feature the same 4352 CUDA cores as the RTX 2080 Ti that will be arranged in a total of 68 SMs.
The card is reportedly going to feature 10 GB of memory that is also going to be GDDR6X, running at 19 Gbps across a 320-bit bus interface with a bandwidth of 760 GB/s. Do note that there has been no indication of a faster spec’d GDDR6 at this point in time, unlike the previous generation where the GDDR6 memory was designed and announced way ahead of the Turing graphics lineup launch.
The switch to GA102 from TU104 on the RTX 2080 is definitely an interesting one. A high-end SKU would also result in higher wattage and thermals but I believe this could be done to raise the bar up on the sub $500 segment which should comprise of GA104 based RTX 3070 tier graphics cards.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series ‘Ampere Gaming GPU’ Rumored Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | GPU | Cores (SMs) | Memory | Memory Bus | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Titan RTX (2nd Gen) | Ampere GA102-400 | 5376 (84) | 24 GB GDDR6X | 384-bit | ~816 GB/s |
| NVIDIA Titan RTX (1st Gen) | Turing TU102-400 | 4608 (72) | 24 GB GDDR6 | 384-bit | 672 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | Ampere GA102-300 | 5248 (82) | 12 GB GDDR6X | 384-bit | ~1.00 TB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | Turing TU102-300 | 4352 (68) | 11 GB GDDR6 | 352-bit | 616 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | Ampere GA102-200 | 4352 (68) | 10 GB GDDR6X | 320-bit | ~760 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 | Turing TU104-400 | 2944 (46) | 8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | 448 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | Ampere GA104-400 | 3072 (48) | 8 GB GDDR6X | 256-bit | ~512 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | Turing TU104-410 | 2560 (40) | 8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | 448 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | Ampere GA104-300 | 2944 (46) | 8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | ~512 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 | Turing TU106-400 | 2304 (36) | 8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | 448 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | Ampere GA106-400 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER | Turing TU106-410 | 2176 (34) | 8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | 448 GB/s |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | Ampere GA106-300 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 | Turing TU106-200 | 1920 (30) | 6 GB GDDR6 | 192-bit | 336 GB/s |
In terms of design, we have already seen leaked pictures of the cooler and heatsink for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. It features a massive heatsink block with a dual axial-fan design & rumors have also pointed out to a new 12-pin power connector on the reference models which we talked about earlier.
Recent reports have suggested that NVIDIA has halted the production of its higher-end GeForce RTX GPU lineup to prepare for the Ampere GeForce RTX launch. Only small quantities of the said GPUs are left in the retail channel thus suggesting that we are getting closer to the launch. There’s definitely a lot more to talk about regarding the Ampere GPUs but we will have to wait until more information comes our way.