- Kyle Chua
Nvidia Launches RTX 40 Series GPUs, Touting Greatly Improved Ray Tracing Performance
After months of rumours and speculation, Nvidia has finally unveiled the next-generation RTX GPUs at its GTC 2022 keynote: the RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080.
Both cards are built on the new Ada Lovelace architecture, which Nivida touts should greatly improve ray tracing performance in games. The American chipmaker reportedly teamed up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to develop the new "4N" fabrication process that's supposedly up to twice as efficient as the 8nm process of the 30 series.
The RTX 4080 comes in two configurations: 12GB and 16GB of GDDR6X memory. Whichever one you choose, Nvidia says they're up to two to four times faster than the RTX 3080 Ti. Performance-wise, the 16GB RTX 4080 packs 9,728 Cuda Cores and a base clock of 2.21GHz, with a maximum boost clock of 2.51GHz. The 12GB variant, on the other hand, only packs 7,680 Cuda Cores, but boasts the fastest clock speeds of the group, with a 2,610 MHz boost frequency.
Meanwhile, the top-end RTX 4090 ships with 24GB of GDDR6X memory and is up to two to four times faster than the RTX 3090 Ti. It has 16,384 Cuda Cores and a base clock speed of 2.23GHz. Interestingly, despite the bump in performance, the flagship card is said to consume the same amount of power as its previous generation counterpart. That means you won't have to upgrade your existing power supply if you already have the aforementioned 3090 Ti.
Nvidia says the new Ada Lovelace architecture is designed to dramatically enhance visuals in games, via improved ray tracing, Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3.0 and a new rendering technique called Shader Execution Reordering. The company demoed the card's capabilities by showing Cyberpunk 2077 running consistently at slightly above 100fps with all ray tracing features cranked to the max. Nvidia added that the new architecture is up to two to three times better at ray tracing than Ampere and up to two times faster in rasterization performance.
The Nvidia RTX 4090 hits stores on 12 October for a whopping US$1,599. The RTX 4080 GPUs, meanwhile, are releasing sometime in November, with the 12GB model costing US$899 and the 16GB model costing $1,199. It's worth noting though that Nvidia plans to only sell a Founders Edition model of the more expensive model. So, if you plan to get the 12GB model, you may have to look to other companies.
Nvidia at its GTC 2022 keynote finally unveiled the next-generation RTX GPUs: the RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080.
Both cards are built on the new Ada Lovelace architecture, which Nivida touts should greatly improve ray tracing performance in games.
The RTX 4090 hits stores on 12 October for a whopping US$1,599.
The RTX 4080 GPUs, meanwhile, are releasing sometime in November, with the 12GB model costing US$899 and the 16GB model costing $1,199.