Nvidia announced a raft of new GPUs at CES earlier this year, including the extremely powerful RTX 3090 Ti. But it's the 4000 Series GPUs that we're fixated on at the moment, and we're keen to know a release date.
It's certainly been an interesting time in the world of GPUs, as worldwide supply issues made graphics cards extremely difficult to come by earlier in the year.
After a period of uncertainty when we weren't sure if an announcement would ever arrive, Nvidia eventually confirmed the RTX 4090 and 4070 Ti during a keynote address from CEO Jensen Huang.
Expectations are sky-high for the new generation of graphics cards, and with that in mind, we've put together all the key information you need to know about the Nvidia RTX 4000 series.
Nvidia RTX 4000 Release Date Predictions
As expected, there have been multiple reports along the way that pointed to different release dates for the RTX 4000 Series. While we won't bombard you with every report under the sun, there were some that stood out and became interesting developments.
Initially, Nvidia's Q3 earning report suggested a later release date than expected, with CEO Jensen Huang saying "Still, the fundamentals of gaming are strong. We’ll get through this over the next few months and go into next year with our new architecture. I look forward to telling you more about it at GTC next month" in response to their struggle to sell all the 3000 series graphics cards.
A leak from Greymon55 suggested that the RTX 4090 may be the only RTX 4000 series card to launch in 2022, with the others following in 2023.
Intriguingly, Nvidia reportedly pulled the RTX 3080 12GB model from production as the card has stopped being sent to board partners (via Zed_Wang). It's worth noting that the company were able to offer the RTX 3000 series cards at retail price in, and maybe more cards could be pulled in future, although this is of course just speculation.
With reference to the point about excess stock, Moore's Law Is Dead noted that Nvidia 'directly stepped in' to help clear out high-end RTX 300 series cards in the hope of making space for the new RTX 4000 series.
Their sources indicated it may take months to clear out the stock, although board partners were apparently left on their own' to tackle lower-end GPUs and the respective stock.
Team Green also reportedly scaled back the amount of 5nm chips they ordered from manufacturer TSMC to avoid there being an excess of cards, given the worldwide cost of living crisis and a general decline in PC gaming interest, as well as the crash in cryptocurrencies, which therefore could have resulted in a lower demand (via VideoCardz).
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In the end, though, Nvidia confirmed that the RTX 4090 would be released on the 12th of October, so you can officially buy it now.
And, whilst there's no official release date for the RTX 4080, the company mentioned during their keynote that it could be expected sometime in November.
Oddly, though, Nvidia 'unlaunched' the 4080 and announced at CES 2023 that we can expect the release of the RTX 4070 Ti, which is actually just the re-branded version of the 4080.
As per VideoCardz, leaker @momoon_us has discovered that power supply maker Enermax has eight new graphic cards up for selection, which could relate to the release of either the RTX 4000 Series or the Radeon RX 7000 Series.
Nvidia RTX 4000 GPUs Specs And Performance
Of course, the really important question is: Just how good will the 4000 series be? Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the new series of cards, is that they will use a new architecture, codenamed Lovelace. These use a 5-nm (nanometer) process, as opposed to the 8-nm that are in the current Ampere GPUs.
What does translate to in terms of performance? Well, if leaks are to be believed, the top-spec AD102 GPU will pack the following, Mike Tyson-sized punch:
- 12 Graphics Processing Clusters
- 18432 CUDA Cores
- 96MB L2 cache
- Potentially up to 92 Teraflops of compute performance
- 2.5GHz clock speed
In comparison to the RTX 3090, the most powerful of the current generation, which offers the following:
- 36 Teraflops of compute performance
- 10496 CUDA cores
- 7 Graphics Processing Clusters
- 6MB L2 cache
- 37.6 Tflops compute performance
- 1.4GHz clock speed
If true, this is an enormous jump in the specifications of the new flagship chip. This could lead to a performance increase of about 150%. But this does come at a cost. To produce these levels of performance, it will be power hungry. Greymon55 suggests you may need a 1500W power supply, and that the AD102 (believed to be the flagship chip) has a TGP number of 450W-850W.
Twitter user 9950pro spotted a leak on the Chinese forum Chiphell, which showed a 3GHz graphics card with 21Gbps VRAM that boasts performance nearly 2x as good as the 3090 Ti, and if this really is the 4090, then we're in for some real firepower.
Speaking of the flagship AD102 chips, the RTX 4080 and 4090, according to leakers, are expected to feature 71% more CUDA cores than their predecessors, that is, if they are based on Nvidia's most powerful AD102 dyes.
Reliable leaker kopite7kimi had noted that the highest-end Nvidia RTX 4000 GPUs based on the AD102 dyes may be set to smash the 100 teraflops barrier to provide competition to AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 7000 series in what he's called an all-out 'gaming war'.
kopite7kimi has also floated the idea that there is allegedly a card in development based on the 'full fat' AD102 dye, complete with 900W TGP and 48GB DDR6 VRAM.
If this is the case, it would make sense for it to be the RTX 4090 Ti, given these specs are doubly powerful than what we believe the top-end RTX 4090 to be, although it's worth noting that, according to the leaker, 'no one knows whether it will become an actual product' due to its double 16 pin power connectors. We can remain hopeful.
Recently. specs for the purpoted RTX 4090 Ti card have leaked, according to kopite7kimi, and it looks to back up their previous leaks concerning a potential 'beast' of a card, although with some revisions. It's expected to come complete with a 800W TDP, alongside 48GB DDR6 VRAM with a speed of 24Gbps.
Intriguingly, kopite7kimi has also noted that the RTX 4000 series of cards may well stick with PCIe Gen 4.0 support, as opposed to going with PCIe Gen 5.0, which may be from the standpoint of practicality.
A recent leak from kopite7kimi has provided a new set of specs for the RTX 4090 that put it as being double the power of a 3090. His Tweet suggests the card will have 450W TDP which is a step down in power consumption from the long-rumoured claims of Nvidia's top-end card pulling 600W or more.
In addition, it should have 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM with a speed of 21Gbps, which is exactly the same as an RTX 3090 Ti, and a shader count of 16,128 represents a large increase over Nvidia's current top-end cards.
Speaking of the RTX 4090, kopite7kimi recently noted that the clock speed of Nvidia's top-end card could be set to get even closer to the elusive 3GHz mark. They've highlighted in a recent specs roundup that its base clock may be 2235 MHz, with a possible boost up to 2750 MHz. For reference, the 3090 Ti has a base clock of 1670MHz with a boost of 1860MHz, respectively.
According to XpeaGPU, an AD102 GPU has been spotted running the 2019 game Control in benchmarks and has achieved 160fps at 4K with Ray Tracing on, which is double that of the RTX 3090's FPS, offering more evidence to the claim that the new AD102 card will be doubly powerful than the existing 3090.
On the point of benchmarks and power, kopite7kimi has noted that both the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 have been spotted in actual hardware being benchmarked with 3DMark Time Spy. Within the benchmarks the 4080 netted a purported score of over 15,000, which would put it as being 50% better than its predecessor, while the 4070 managed one over 10,000, which is as powerful as a 3090 and 50% faster than the RTX 3070.
Speaking of cards being more powerful, kopite7kimi has noted that the AD104 SKU, referring to the RTX 4070 will reportedly be able to 'easily match' the RTX 3090 Ti in terms of performance, which would make it seriously capable if true.
With that being said, kopite7kimi has revised his information when it comes to the CUDA core count of the RTX 4080 down to 9,728 from the previously expected 10,248. Everything else within their leaks roundup has remained the same, however.
kopite7kimi has also noted that the RTX 4060 supposedly consumes more power than the RTX 3070, which could potentially lead to a TDP of 250W or more, which is a large jump for any -60 series card, and could make it quite the beefy choice.
On the point of TDP and power usage, kopite7kimi has also noted that the RTX 4080 could nearly pull as much power as an RTX 3090 Ti with a potential TDP of 420W. For reference, the RTX 3090 Ti features a TDP of 450W, whilst the current-gen RTX 3080 pulls 320W.
kopite7kimi has recently updated his predictions for the power consumption figures of the new RTX 4000 series cards. The top-end AD102 dye is expected to feature 800W of power delivery, whilst the AD103 desktop chip is slated to pull 450W, alongside the AD104's 400 watts, and AD106's 260W.
Renowned leaker kopite7kimi has also updated his predictions for the power consumption figures of the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 in a recent Tweet. He has noted the RTX 4080 is expected to pull 320W, while the RTX 4070 is expected to feature 285W. While this is a fair decrease compared to previously leaked figures, the cards are still in line or above their predecessors by a small margin.
kopite7kimi has also noted the RTX 4090 may well reach the 100 TFLOP barrier in terms of performance with a clock speed of 2.8GHz, which reiterates the potentially serious power of these new RTX 4000 cards.
Speaking of updated predictions, reliable leaker kopite7kimi recently updated his expectations for the specs of the new RTX-4000 series cards which dials back previous leaks, and provides the first full set of specs we'd seen for the RTX 4080 - you can check it out below:
We've also seen a leaked design for the RTX 4090Ti Founders Edition which looks to retain the same dual-axial fan design as previous Founder's Edition cards, as well as a metal frame, thanks to a poster on the Chiphell forum (via VideoCardz). You can check out the alleged design below:
In addition, Moore's Law Is Dead claims to have received renders of the RTX 4090 Ti Founders Edition that are allegedly based on an engineering sample. The card looks to be thicker than its predecessor, which may be to account for its higher TDP. You can check out the alleged render below:
Nvidia RTX 4000 Ray Tracing
Perhaps one of the most sought after features of these graphics cards is their ray tracing ability, and it looks like we may be in for something next-level, based on patent filing from Nvidia.
The patent references a new way of handling light levels and auto-exposure application in relation to context-sensitive content.
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Basically what this means is that the card could 'adjust' the lighting if it's too bright or dark. That's important as if it goes either way you could lose image quality or detail.
With more CUDA cores rumoured for the 4000 series, this may be a feature that doesn't have to come at the expense of overall performance.
Nvidia RTX 4000 GPUs Price
The starting price for the RTX 4090 is $1599, making it $100 more expensive than its predecessor, the RTX 3090. This price tag also means it's Nvidia's most expensive consumer graphics card to date.
Meanwhile, the RTX 4070 Ti has a starting price of $1199 for its 16GB card and $899 for its 12GB card, which is once again a significant increase on the RTX 3080.
Anything Else Worth Knowing?
At this stage, everything remains slightly speculative, so do bear that in mind. Until Nvidia confirms something officially, we just have to absorb the various leaks and rumours, and try to form an impression of what seems to be coming up.
And if those rumours are true, we could be looking at something truly impressive. PC gamers should be excited. But now would probably be a good time to start saving those pennies, as we don't expect these to come cheap. Assuming you can actually get hold of one, which is, of course, the other elephant in the room at the moment.
If you are currently looking for a new graphics card, we'd say let our friends at Stock Informer give you a hand, as they track loads of hard to pin down GPUs.
As always, we'll continue to keep abreast of any news, and update you as soon as anything new comes to light, in relation to the RTX 4000 GPUs.
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