AMD, now your move…
Here are the VRAM and prices for anyone who hasn’t seen them yet:
It was claimed during the presentation that even the 3070 is faster than the 2080ti
Keep in mind that while the RTX 3090 would allow for brain-melting speeds in Cycles, the only way to get that is with the RTX cores, and RTX can’t use any advanced shading techniques (ie. random walk SSS, AO shading, bevel shading, ect…).
Unless you plan on making long-format animations, it may not be worth it to let a single piece of hardware be pricier than the rest of your build combined.
@Ace_Dragon
I’m not too knowledgeable about hardware, you’re saying a 3090 isn’t a good fit for Blender?
I also heard someone say the 3090 “won’t have any pro drivers”. I have no idea what this means.
I’m confused, i thought these new GPUs were supposed to be the dogs gonads for pro users?
Anyone care to explain?
You should also have a sizable upgrade in your machine’s ability to handle Eevee and the viewport (due to the 24 gigs of VRAM and the beefed up specs. in other areas). What I am noting is that due to the price, this card can easily double the price of your PC build, even more so if AiB vendors put a sizable markup on that price due to demand.
You also might need a 1 kilowatt power supply (or even 1.5 kilowatts) if you pair this card with a high-end Intel i9 chip or an HEDT-class AMD chip, that could mean a large electric bill in some regions.
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Weren’t kilowatt PSUs normal back in 2016?
I know I have one in my current build which is from 2016 and if i remember correctly that was what several people who know more than me about building PCs recommended.
The 3090 will be excellent for rendering in Blender but it may not be worth the cost depending on your needs.
- What @Ace_Dragon meant was that the 3090 will render fastest when using OptiX, which has certain limitations when it comes to features. It will still be extremely fast when using CUDA, just not as fast as with OptiX. (All of the above applies to any RTX series card though…).
- The “pro drivers” that they are referring to are those developed for the professional Quadro line of cards. One wouldn’t expect a GeForce card to have these types of drivers, so I don’t know why that was even being discussed in regards to the 3090. Don’t worry about it.
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The overall power of the cards seems really impressive, but the 3080 VRAM seems a little bit low for the price. Surely they aren’t planning on having a 4gb 3050 are they? I feel like Nvidia will release a Ti or Super card with the extra 2gb I crave, and they are leaving those 2gb out of the 3080 to make the 3090 that bit more tempting.
Pretty sure I’m going to just buy a 3080 once someone has made a youtube video of it fitting in an NCase M1 ITX case.
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I think it is because Nvidia tried to make the prices reasonable and high sales before Big Navi release. This may be an indication that new cards from AMD will be really fast. We can expect Nvidia / AMD battle and price drops.
It looks like the RTX 3070 and especially the RTX 3080 are going to be quite a bad value for the money if this is true. Lenovo is reporting an RTX 3070 Ti model with 16 gigs of VRAM
It looks like Nvidia is again going for a huge lineup filled with models that have similar names, but with very different specs (which could lead to Nvidia raking in money from customer confusion).
3080 TI with 20GB has also been leaked by Asus. Apparently launching in February at 999$.
I’ll get one, if I can get one.
I hear that the next generation Lovelace, will be a 2X or more increase over Ampere… I think i shall wait for Lovelace, being as it should allow Nvidia to not make the same mistake of inadequate vram and to overcome supply issues and scalpers… But thats in an ideal world of course, i think Nvidia will try and make the creative crowd pay through the nose if they can, for things we need like high VRAM or multiple card setups.
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Wont you need to upgrade your power supply to run it? I mean these things are not just plug and play with any old PSU or are they?
If you have enough wattage it will work.
It does have a new power connector on the board, but it comes with an adapter cable included.
The card will certainly be very power hungry as @Chuk_Chuk implied.
The problem I am seeing right now is that there are plenty of sellers offering this card when you try to purchase it you find out that it’s out of stock. I was able to get an eBay seller to accept an offer 1499 and I paid for the card last night but this morning I learned that the seller had cancelled the deal and refunded my money. So it seems that these cards are more like vaporware.
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Yeah the current performance GPU availability is just laughable. I hope I’ll be able to score myself a new gpu this year, if they eventually make it to the store shelves.
I’m on the fence about whether to get just the GPU or build a whole new system. I built my dual Xeon E5-2667 with 128GB RAM and originally put in a Titan X, then more recently swapped out for a 1080Ti.
The system runs 32 threads and is reasonably quick, but it IS 2015 technology.
I believe a new Ampere card would probably make the biggest difference and depending on your needs and budget, would probably suffice.
Got a 1080TI myself, and looking to switch to the upcoming 20GB 3080 variant once attainable. It should give me a huge boost in light rendering workloads and other gamedev specific tasks.