For a while, Nvidia has teased its next generation of video card series, the RTX 4xxx, and regardless if you are ready for it or not, it’s here. Or, I should say, it’s almost here. During today’s Nvidia GeForce Beyond special event, Nvidia’s CEO revealed the RTX 4xxx line-up with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080.
The RTX 4090 will see a single variant, while the RTX 4080 will see a 16GB and a 12GB version of the card. Not to worry about memory with the RTX 4090, as it will come packed with 24GB of GDD6X memory. And if you’re saying, “damn, that’s a lot of memory,” I’m right there with you.
Each RTX 4xxx GPU will have an increased core count compared to the RTX 3xxx cards. For example, the RTX 3090 TI comes with 336 Tensor Cores and 10, 752 CUDA cores. While the RTX 4090 will feature 16,384 CUDA cores, and the RTX 4080 16GB with 9,728 CUDA cores. However, with that added power comes increased power usage.
Nvidia recommends a power supply of at least 850 watts based on a PC with a Ryzen 5900X processor. Given whatever else is in your PC, that wattage can go up. If you’re already rocking an Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, you’re likely already set. For everyone else looking to upgrade their GPU, you may want to rethink your power supply.
| RTX 4090 | RTX 4080 16GB | RTX 4090 12GB | RTX 3090 Ti | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 7,680 | 10,752 |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X |
| Tensor Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 7,680 | 10752 |
| Bus width | 384-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 384-bit |
| Power Usage | 450W | 320W | 285W | 450W |
According to Nvidia, the RTX 4090 will outclass its current generation RTX 3090 Ti’s performance by 2–4x, thanks to the new Ada Lovelace architecture. However, Nvidia didn’t provide any benchmarks, so for now, we’ll have to take their word. Rest assured, your favorite tech YouTubers like always have these cards, or they’re on their way so that we can find out more about these beasts.
The RTX 4090 is priced at $1599, RTX 4080 16GB $1,199, and the RTX 12GB starting at $899. Nvidia has claimed these GPUs will be available starting this October 12th, 2022,
Along with the new GPUs, Nvidia also revealed its third generation of Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3. The Ada Lovelace RTX architecture will support DLSS 3 and greatly improve Ray Tracing support. A demo of Microsoft Flight Simulator was shown, with DLSS more than doubling the frame rates, thanks to DLSS 3. This might be the card to finally get solid frame rates will playing 4K games without compromises. We’ll see.
According to Nvidia, there are 35 games that will support DLSS 3, with the first games being released in October 2022. Assuming we can purchase one of these monstrous cards, we’ll be happy to see just how powerful the RTX 4090 or RTX 4080 GPUs are.
Now, this all sounds amazing, however, it also sounds expensive. Until we see some benchmarks, it might be worth holding on to your current generation of Nvidia RTX 3080 or RTX 3090 cards. We all saw when the RTX 3090 Ti was released, it was a waste of resources. While I hope the same isn’t true for the RTX 4xxx, we’ll have to wait and see.
As for DLSS 3, I find it hard to believe that this is restricted to RTX 4XXX cards and leaving out thousands of people who own RTX 3070/3080/3090 cards.
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