After months of anticipation and controversy among its adder board partners, NVIDIA’s 40-series GPUs are finally here. The company today unveiled the GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 4080 at its GTC 2022 conference. Taking full advantage of its new “Ada Lovelace” architecture, NVIDIA says the two GPUs offer significantly better ray tracing performance. The company worked with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to jointly develop a new “4N” manufacturing process that NVIDIA says is up to twice as efficient as the 8nm process it used for its cards in the series 30.
Ray tracing performance is significantly improved thanks to Ada Lovelace featuring NVIDIA’s new 3rd generation RT Cores and the inclusion of a new rendering technique called Shader Execution Reordering and DLSS 3.0. In some games, NVIDIA said you can expect two to three times better ray tracing performance than what was possible with its Ampere GPUs. The company demoed Cyberpunk 2077 running at a near-constant 100 frames per second with all of the game’s ray tracing features set to maximum. NVIDIA said that rasterization performance is up to two times faster thanks to the new architecture.
NVIDIA
The first of NVIDIA’s new Ada Lovelace GPUs will arrive next month when the GeForce RTX 4090 goes on sale for $1,599 on October 12. With 24GB of GDDR6X memory, NVIDIA claims its latest flagship is two to four times faster than the 3090 Ti while consuming the same amount of power. It’s also good because it starts at $100 more than its predecessor. Inside the RTX 4090, NVIDIA has managed to install 16,384 CUDA cores at a base speed of 2.23 GHz.
Alongside the 4090, NVIDIA will offer two different variants of the RTX 4080. The base model, starting at $899, comes with 12GB of GDDR6X memory, while the 16GB version will set you back $1,199. Both configurations will arrive in November. However, NVIDIA will only sell a Founders Edition model of the most expensive model. For the 12GB version, you’ll have to hunt down the company’s partners, which can make it difficult to find models that start at $899.
Performance-wise, the 16GB 3080 boasts 9,728 Cuda cores and a base clock of 2.21GHz, with a peak boost clock of 2.51GHz. Meanwhile, the 12GB model features a more modest 7,680 CUDA cores, but a faster 100MHz base and boost clock. Fortunately, you probably won’t need to upgrade your power supply if you’re planning to upgrade from a 3070 or 3080, with NVIDIA recommending a 700-watt PSU for the 12GB variant and a 750-watt power supply for his more powerful brother. However, if you decide to buy a new PSU, you’ll want to wait until more ATX 3.0 PSUs arrive later this year. That’s because at least the Founders Edition models will support the new 16-pin PCIe Gen-5 connector standard. That said, NVIDIA will also include an 8-pin adapter for those who don’t want to rewire their system.
NVIDIA’s 40-series GPUs come at a difficult time for the company. For much of the pandemic, it was impossible to buy the latest GeForce GPUs at MSRP due to demand from both gamers and cryptominers. This has all changed in recent months due to the recent crypto crash and Ethereum’s long-awaited switch to proof-of-stake minting. As a result of these events, the used market was flooded with 30-series GPUs, making it nearly impossible for the company’s AIB partners and retailers to sell new video cards at MSRP.
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