We’re finally starting to hear a bit more about Nvidia’s next-generation Ampere graphics cards.
In a recent rumor, it was suggested that RTX-based games won’t experience a performance hit while using ray tracing with the upcoming Ampere graphics cards. This includes the anticipated GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card.
According to information from industry insiders, the Youtube channel “Moore’s Law is Dead” suggested that Ampere cards won’t just be a die shrink version of Turing architecture with more RT cores. Ampere will instead be a “multipurpose architecture” and act as something entirely new in the graphics card market.
Many of us have been pretty excited by the rumors that Ampere will offer higher ray tracing than Turning architecture does. This is reportedly 4x better performance per tier.
This means that the GeForce RTX 3060 could offer the same ray-tracing performance as the current flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
However, the rumor stated that Ampere will be a step up from Turing and soon enough Turing will become outdated in comparison. This might not be the best news to hear if you’re planning to drop a lot of cash on a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
Rumored Nvidia Ampere GA100 Specifications
What do we know so far about Nvidia Ampere graphics cards? Well, the architecture should provide or use the following:
- 8192 CUDA cores reaching 1750 MHz boost
- 256 RT Cores
- 1024 Tensor cores
- 7nm process nodes
- GDDR6 at 16 Gbps (unknown amount)
- Unknown TDP
As you can see, there are still missing pieces in our knowledge of Ampere so we’re hoping that Nvidia will be able to fill in those gaps for us soon.
The rumored GPUs are currently codenamed GA102, GA103, and GA104. The GA102 is expected to have 5376 CUDA cores, 12 GB of GDDR6 RAM with a 384-bit bus which will make it up to 40% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti.
The GA103 will have 3840 CUDA cores, 10 GB of GDDR6 RAM with a 320-bit bus, making it 10% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti.
Finally, there’s the GA104 which is expected to have 3072 CUDA cores, 8 GB of GDDR6 RAM, and 256-bit bus. This card is expected to be 5% slower than the RTX 2080 Ti.
With all sorts of rumors flying around about Ampere graphics cards, it’s pretty hard to say with any certainty what the performance on these cards will be like. However, this rumor about ray tracing not negatively affecting the gameplay experience too much is certainly interesting.
Everything suggests we’re in for some ultra-powerful graphics cards which take ray tracing to the next level, so for that, we’re pretty excited to see them.
When we hear some official announcements and confirmations from Nvidia, we’ll be sure as ever to keep you updated. Check back here frequently to stay on top of the Ampere news.