Nvidia's RTX 3000 amp graphics cards are slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2020, slightly later than some have hoped. At least that's what Leaker AquariusZi, known in hardware circles, claims in the forum of the Chinese website PC_Shopping (machine translated).
In his opinion AMD's Big Navi the reason for that. Nvidia postpones the new graphics cards due to strong competition from AMD?
When was a release expected so far?
It is not easy to say. There is some evidence that Nvidia had planned to announce the RTX 3000 Amp GPUs at the in-house GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2020 in March. In the run-up to this, there were already corresponding notices.
Due to the Corona crisis, the GTC then canceled, but Nvidia wanted to at least hold the keynote via livestream. When the replacement event was canceled, Nvidia announced the news. In the meantime, however, this was also canceled.
An announcement in March suggested some observersthat there could be a release towards the end of the second quarter, for example at Computex or at another trade fair.
Xbox Series X indicates high AMD performance
Just a few days ago, Microsoft announced the final specifications of the Xbox Series X. Since it is based on AMD's RDNA2 architecture, which will also be used for upcoming (high-end) desktop graphics cards, it allows a certain view of what awaits us in the PC area from AMD.
This is how the graphics chip of the Xbox Series X 12 TFLOPs is supposed to perform with 52 compute units (CUs) or 3,328 computing cores and a clock frequency of 1.825 GHz. This is a real announcement not only for consoles, but also for the PC.
Nvidia's flagship RTX 2080 Ti, for example, has 13.45 TFLOPs with 4,352 cores and clock speeds of just under 2.0 GHz. However, TFLOP specifications for hardware with different architecture can only be compared to a limited extent.
Architecturally, the Radeon RX 5700 XT with 2,560 processing cores and clock speeds is 1.9 GHz. It achieves around 9.75 TFLOPs and is roughly at the same level as the Geforce RTX 2070.
Even more cores for Big Navi?
Considering that AMD may add even more computing cores to its high-end models for the desktop, also known as Big Navi, this could result in very strong competition for Nvidia, especially with regard to eventual competitive prices of the arch-rival.
Current rumors and speculations seem to underpin the strong competition from AMD: AMD's Big Navi is said to be equipped with up to 5,120 computing cores (80 CUs).
If this is true and at the same time slightly higher clock speeds than on the SoC of the Xbox Series X – on the PlayStation 5, which also uses an AMD-RDNA2 chip, according to the official presentation, at least up to 2.33 GHz should be possible – Big Navi could actually make a big jump in performance.
more on the subject
That's in the PS5: Sony shows specs of the Next Gen console
How could Nvidia react?
Since Nvidia is already quite advanced with the development of the ampere GPUs, the possibilities for an adjustment would be limited. The example of the Radeon RX 5600 XT, which received a bios update for higher clock rates with the release, shows, however, that there can be scope.
Another way to respond to strong competition, is the price. If AMD Nvidia comes too close at the top, appropriate adjustments could be made before the release.
Not to be forgotten, howeverthat the statements of AquariusZi are only unconfirmed rumors. Any postponements at Nvidia could also have to do with the current Corona crisis and unforeseeable consequences for the technology industry.
Table of Contents
