Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition examined

[[GSV]Trig]

Is it just me? Or is the "FE" card (inc cooler) smaller than ANYTHING offered by the AIBs?
Other 3080s all seem to be at least 2.7 slots wide.

Yeah I've been looking at the PNY cards as that's what my guy has told me he can get, I'm expecting stock issues so was, yesterday at least, thinking of getting a 3070 and a 3080 and then seeing what turns up, test both, if they arrive and then get rid of whichever doesn't actually suit my needs, it being a month old and stock being short I should be able to get rid of it for what I paid.

[Zhaoman]

Is it just me? Or is the "FE" card (inc cooler) smaller than ANYTHING offered by the AIBs?
Other 3080s all seem to be at least 2.7 slots wide.

The way that Jensen pushed the 3080 as being the flagship and then kind of skipped over the 3090 as something that most people don't wanna buy is weird. It feels like the 3080 was meant to be the ridiculous balls out card with 320W that Nvidia made to crush/dominate but then they got wind that AMD might actually have something stronger and got scared so they put together the 3090 at 350W just to make sure they had the performance crown. But if the rumours of limited stock are true then they have no real intention to market or sell the 3090 because they simply won't get the yields at least initially. So yeah if that is indeed the context then the 3080 is a balls out card with the memory clocked to within an inch of its life thus the reference design Nvidia gave AIBs requires 3x 8 pins and 3 slots while they kept the best binned for themselves which could start to make a bit more sense of the situation...?

[kalniel]

The FE cooler looks very impressive.. and expensive. It's not beyond the realms of possibility it's close to the performance of the 3 fan AIB cards.

But then they have to. For years mud was flung at AMD for having 'hot and hungry' cards and now the shoe is on the other foot...

[3dcandy]

Is it just me? Or is the "FE" card (inc cooler) smaller than ANYTHING offered by the AIBs?
Other 3080s all seem to be at least 2.7 slots wide.

The way that Jensen pushed the 3080 as being the flagship and then kind of skipped over the 3090 as something that most people don't wanna buy is weird. It feels like the 3080 was meant to be the ridiculous balls out card with 320W that Nvidia made to crush/dominate but then they got wind that AMD might actually have something stronger and got scared so they put together the 3090 at 350W just to make sure they had the performance crown. But if the rumours of limited stock are true then they have no real intention to market or sell the 3090 because they simply won't get the yields at least initially. So yeah if that is indeed the context then the 3080 is a balls out card with the memory clocked to within an inch of its life thus the reference design Nvidia gave AIBs requires 3x 8 pins and 3 slots while they kept the best binned for themselves which could start to make a bit more sense of the situation...?

The 3090 is kinda a Titan replacement. No stock, massive power useage. If you want the best then it's a ludicrous amount to pay
3080 IS the mainstream card

[Zhaoman]

The 3090 is kinda a Titan replacement. No stock, massive power useage. If you want the best then it's a ludicrous amount to pay
3080 IS the mainstream card

Yeah that is the official Nvidia marketing and their spin on it which could well be the case.
But if you believe the rumour mill then the 3090 was never meant to exist. They pushed the 3080 right to the limit in terms of wattage and memory and what was possible with yields with the aim of being performance leader and then release a Titan when yields improved. But potential 3080-level performance rumours from AMD got them spooked so they made the 3090 as a stop-gap to ensure the performance crown on paper. But yields are likely to be so low (Moore's Law is Dead is suggesting possibly as atrociously low as double figures until 2021...) that no one will realistically be able to buy one and it is all but a meaningless launch purely for performance leadership on paper until yields improve and they can release a real Titan. That is why they didn't call it a 'Titan' because they didn't want to 'cheapen' the Titan name. This would make sense why the 3080 is a triple slot card, because it is effectively the best that Nvidia can do at volume at the moment on Samsung's 8nm process and they've pushed it right to the edge.

Of course we have heard nothing from AMD and this could all be wishful thinking from AMD fanbois but Nvidia are acting a bit strange with the 3080/3090.

[3dcandy]

Yeah that is the official Nvidia marketing and their spin on it which could well be the case.
But if you believe the rumour mill then the 3090 was never meant to exist. They pushed the 3080 right to the limit in terms of wattage and memory and what was possible with yields with the aim of being performance leader and then release a Titan when yields improved. But potential 3080-level performance rumours from AMD got them spooked so they made the 3090 as a stop-gap to ensure the performance crown on paper. But yields are likely to be so low (Moore's Law is Dead is suggesting possibly as atrociously low as double figures until 2021...) that no one will realistically be able to buy one and it is all but a meaningless launch purely for performance leadership on paper until yields improve and they can release a real Titan. That is why they didn't call it a 'Titan' because they didn't want to 'cheapen' the Titan name. This would make sense why the 3080 is a triple slot card, because it is effectively the best that Nvidia can do at volume at the moment on Samsung's 8nm process and they've pushed it right to the edge.

Of course we have heard nothing from AMD and this could all be wishful thinking from AMD fanbois but Nvidia are acting a bit strange with the 3080/3090.

Plenty from AMD if you look hard enough - just not official. I'll sum it up quickly. Lower power useage than ampere, performance of top model is between 3070 and 3080 generally but will have more vram (16 gig). Cards are quite a bit smaller because of the lower power useage. Availability supposed to be better than ampere because the yields are much better already. However stock at launch will be poor as the majority of chips are already in xbox and ps5's and the large amount of capacity they require. Also a large amount of AMD's capacity is being taken up by really strong demand for Zen3 which is on the same node

[[GSV]Trig]

Yeah that is the official Nvidia marketing and their spin on it which could well be the case.
But if you believe the rumour mill then the 3090 was never meant to exist.

I would expect that the 3090 is on the 7nm and the 3080 on the 8nm, heard that they couldn't get space on the 7nm so if the 3090 is the rare 'uber card then those low numbers could be why the 3090 wasn't spoken about much, maybe if they can get space with TSMC earlier next year then maybe they'll do a refresh of everything (Super) and then that'll be 7nm(+) as others move on..

Wonder who is taking up the 7nm space though, if its AMD with the 4000 series and BigNavi then AMD could really upset the apple cart in October when they start dropping products..

[Spud1]

But then they have to. For years mud was flung at AMD for having 'hot and hungry' cards and now the shoe is on the other foot...

Hot, Hungry AND under performing though - that last point was the main issue. If its hot & power hungry but also vastly out performs the competition's best, then its less of an issue. For me, anyway.

The 3090 is an interesting one and the merits of that card depends massively on the performance gap. If it hits the roughly 10% boost over a 3080 that the Titan RTX had over the 2080ti, then well, seems like a guaranteed waste of money for gamers.

If however it gets a 25% or so boost (probably unrealistic) then it's a different story altogether and it gets much more interesting (difficult?).

Personally I think that would be suicidal from Nvidia though - if they really made a top end card that has that big of a performance gap, but that low of a yield (therefore the higher price & lower availability) we'd be up in arms about it. Would feel like a huge kick in the teeth really.

[kalniel]

I would expect that the 3090 is on the 7nm and the 3080 on the 8nm

They're based on the same underlying chip, which you wouldn't want to produce across two different foundaries if you can avoid it due to the effort involved in getting it working even in one.

, heard that they couldn't get space on the 7nm so if the 3090 is the rare 'uber card then those low numbers could be why the 3090 wasn't spoken about much, maybe if they can get space with TSMC earlier next year then maybe they'll do a refresh of everything (Super) and then that'll be 7nm(+) as others move on..

Maybe, but moving even an existing design to a new foundary is a huge amount of work, they might as well design a new chip if they're doing that.

Wonder who is taking up the 7nm space though, if its AMD with the 4000 series and BigNavi then AMD could really upset the apple cart in October when they start dropping products..

AMD, HiSilicon, Qualcomm etc.. NVidia's problem is also that TSMC aren't cutting them a deal this time around.

Hot, Hungry AND under performing though - that last point was the main issue. If its hot & power hungry but also vastly out performs the competition's best, then its less of an issue. For me, anyway.

I suppose if you're talking halo product, yes, but they didn't underperform the chips they were targetted at, yet were still called hot/hungry etc.

[Zhaoman]

Plenty from AMD if you look hard enough - just not official. I'll sum it up quickly. Lower power useage than ampere, performance of top model is between 3070 and 3080 generally but will have more vram (16 gig). Cards are quite a bit smaller because of the lower power useage. Availability supposed to be better than ampere because the yields are much better already. However stock at launch will be poor as the majority of chips are already in xbox and ps5's and the large amount of capacity they require. Also a large amount of AMD's capacity is being taken up by really strong demand for Zen3 which is on the same node

16gig will be the 256bit bus card which is certainly not the top end model. With no official word from AMD this is where it's hard to separate wheat from chaff. Are the 3070-3080 performance rumours referring to the 16gig 256bit 'mid-range' card or the top end model? Or perhaps AMD don't even want to chase the performance crown because they can make more chips per wafer (and profits) from CPUs since they're competing for space on the same node.

Wonder who is taking up the 7nm space though, if its AMD with the 4000 series and BigNavi then AMD could really upset the apple cart in October when they start dropping products..

If the AMD 16gb 'mid-range' is challenging 3070-3080 then definitely! I doubt it somehow but yeah we'll wait and see. I'm looking forward to upgrading for Flight Sim 2020 in the next couple of months.

[3dcandy]

I would expect that the 3090 is on the 7nm and the 3080 on the 8nm, heard that they couldn't get space on the 7nm so if the 3090 is the rare 'uber card then those low numbers could be why the 3090 wasn't spoken about much, maybe if they can get space with TSMC earlier next year then maybe they'll do a refresh of everything (Super) and then that'll be 7nm(+) as others move on..

Wonder who is taking up the 7nm space though, if its AMD with the 4000 series and BigNavi then AMD could really upset the apple cart in October when they start dropping products..

Nope 3090 is on Samsung 8nm
Basically NV shafted TSMC (again) so they couldn't get capacity. 7nm capacity is taken up with AMD for Zen3 and Big Navi, Apple with their chips and anyone else who wanted what looks to be a much better process/node
NV took Samsungs offer of ultra low prices and other sweeteners because they simply couldn't get 7nm at a price or deal they wanted to so TSMC said "see ya!"

I don't think AMD need to chase the top end. The consoles will give them plenty of sales though the prices are low. The Zen3 chips will give them plenty of sales (rumours from US are AMD sales recently have been as big if not bigger than Intel in numbers shipped/sold worldwide though Intel aren't saying anything. As long as big navi is decent enough it will be ok. There simply isn't the capacity from TSMC to have a mega hit on their hands as Zen3 is going to be massive according to many

[Corky34]

Review dates have been pushed back from the September 14 mentioned in the article to September 16.

[3dcandy]

Interesting talk now about how prices might be considerably higher for RTX 30XX cards if and when you can get them here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxtfNcm45xk

Not looking so pretty now huh NV

[PMMEASURES]

Just measured up.... Won't fit in my case lol

[Xlucine]

Review dates have been pushed back from the September 14 mentioned in the article to September 16.

Ooh, smells like 5600XT

[Corky34]

Ooh, smells like 5600XT

From what i understand it was because some reviewers asked for more time because COVID was making reviewing things harder.