Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series offered a significant jump in performance compared to the RTX 20 Series, and rumours suggest we could be seeing a similar jump from the next-gen RTX 40 Series currently in development behind closed doors at Nvidia HQ.
The latest leaks point towards a 5nm process node running Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace GPU architecture that could offer a 2x jump in performance, and whispers suggest release could be closer than expected. Here’s all there is to know about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Series right now.
When will the Nvidia RTX 40 Series be released?
Nvidia’s next-gen RTX 40 series of graphics cards were originally rumoured for release sometime in late 2022 – and given the two-year gap between the RTX 20 series and RTX 30 series, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Twitter leaker @Greymon55 claimed back in July 2021 that the graphics cards will launch “no earlier than end of 2022”. That aligns with previous Nvidia graphics card releases, which tend to appear towards the end of the year, although the leaker has also suggested that this could potentially slip into Q1 2023, which runs from January – March.
However, reliable leaker @Kopite7kimi suggested in April 2022 that the AD102 GPU – the GPU expected to power the top-end RTX 4090 – had entered the testing phase. If true, it’s a good sign that development of the next-gen range is coming along nicely, and barring any unforeseen testing issues, the design of the GPU is likely finalised.
The leaker has followed up his claim, teasing in May 2022 that a release could be on the cards as soon as early Q3, and in a reply to a follower, the leaker clarified that release could be as soon as “mid-July“.
Interestingly, other leakers also seem to believe that the RTX 4090 will be the first – and possibly only – 40 Series launch in 2022.
AD102:2022AD103/104/106:2023
— Greymon55 (@greymon55) July 15, 2022
That includes Twitter leaker Greymon55, who suggests in an updated prediction that the RTX 4090 will appear this year while the rest of the RTX 40 Series will follow sometime in 2023. The reason, per the leaker, is “too many stocks”.
This refers to the rumour that Nvidia has a lot of RTX 30 Series GPU inventory left in stock due to overproduction and the saturation of GPUs in the second-hand market amidst the latest cryptocurrency crash.
Pushing the release of the RTX 4070, RTX 4080 and other 40-Series GPUs gives Nvidia an extra few months to shift the remaining 30-Series stock without potentially losing a lot of money.
How much will the Nvidia RTX 40 Series cost?
We’re still some time away from the release of the Nvidia RTX 40 Series, so it’s hard to say how much the next-gen range might cost right now – although we can look at the current RTX 30 Series as a guide.
As a reminder, here’s what the current RTX 30 Series line-up looks like:
Starting at just £299/$329, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 comes in cheaper than competing GPUs from AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 Series, and it’s hoped that Nvidia will keep that trend going with the next-gen 40 Series – after all, there were significant jumps in performance in the 30 Series compared to its predecessor and it was still competitively priced.
The issue, as most of you reading this article will be painfully aware of, is the lack of stock, driving GPU prices through the roof with resellers marking up prices to never seen before levels – it’s not uncommon to see an RTX 3070, a £469/$499 card, go for double that amount. The worst part? People are actually paying those prices.
Nvidia could see that gamers are willing to pay much more than the MSRP for its graphics cards, which could incentivise the company to increase the price across the range for the RTX 40 Series – something rumoured to be happening with the competing
AMD Radeon RX 7000 Series.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen though; I think we all need a break from pricey GPUs after the current shortage ends.
The good news is that Nvidia is bolstering stock of the RTX 30 series, with Nvidia CFO Colette Kress confirming at a
March 2022 investors event that “we will be in a good supply situation in the second half [of 2022]” which should translate to better pricing.
Kress also teased the idea of continuing to sell the RTX 30 series alongside the 40 series to provide more choice – and crucially, supply – for consumers.
“Even during this period of COVID and supply constraints, it’s been interesting because it’s given us the opportunity for gaming to continue to sell both the current generation (RTX 30 series) as well as the Turing generation (the RTX 20 series),” Kress explained. “So we’ve been doing that to provide more and more supply to our gamers in that. And we may see something like that continue in the future.”
What to expect from the Nvidia RTX 40 Series
5nm Ada Lovelace architecture
Twitter leaker @Greymon55 suggests that Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 Series will be based on the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture – a figure associated with the creation are what are considered to be the first computer programs back in the 1800s for those unaware.
It’s also suggested that the new range will be based on TSMC’s 5nm process node, down from 8nm in the current range. What isn’t known right now is whether it’s based on the standard N5 or N5P node.
The 5nm process has been outed a number of times from varying reports – most recently from
DigiTimes – suggesting that there could be weight to the claim.
Performance improvements
Despite the huge gains in performance the RTX 30 Series offered over the 20 Series, the RTX 40 Series is expected to offer a similar boost in performance when compared to the current top-end RTX 3090 – a graphics card with an MSRP of £1399/$1499.
The rumour comes from Twitter leaker @TtLexington, who suggests that the Nvidia RTX 40 Series could offer the same general performance jump over the RTX 30 Series, offering a rough 2x jump in overall performance, courtesy of the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and 5nm chipset at the heart of the range.
It’s also rumoured that the new RTX 40 Series could feature clock speeds between 2.2 and 2.5GHz (boosted), offering a decent jump from the current 1.7-1.9GHz clock speeds on offer from the current Ampere architecture.
Nvidia RTX 4070
Not much is known about Nvidia’s mid-tier next-gen graphics card, right now, but it’s rumoured that the Nvidia RTX 4070 could feature 10 or 12GB of slightly slower GDDR5 VRAM clocked at 18Gbps, with a 300W TDP.
If true, that’s a 2/4GB boost to overall VRAM compared to the 8GB GDDR6X 3070 Ti, though with slower memory and, thus, slightly slower clock speeds.
Nvidia RTX 4080
Like the RTX 4070, there isn’t much to go on with the flagship RTX 4080.
Rumours suggest that it could offer as much as 16GB of GDDR6X VRAM clocked at 21Gbps, a boost of 4GB compared to the 12GB GDDRX-enabled RTX 3080 Ti with an increased 420W TDP, but that’s about all we know right now.
Nvidia RTX 4090
While not much is known about the rest of the range, that can’t be said of the RTX 4090. Leaker @kopite7kimi has revealed a handful of key specs about the top-end RTX 4090, giving us our most comprehensive look at the rumoured GPU to date.
OK, let’s do a new summary. RTX 4090, AD102-300, 16128FP32, 21Gbps 24G GDDR6X, 450W, ~2×3090. I am disappointed with RDNA3. That’s all.
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) May 16, 2022
Per the leaker, the RTX 4090 will feature 126 Streaming Multiprocessors, providing a total of 16,128 CUDA cores, and will sport 24GB of GDDR6X memory clocked at 21 Gbps. That suggests a 384-bit memory bus and upwards of 1TB/s bandwidth.
However, despite the top-end spec, the leaker suggests it’ll feature the same 450W TDP as its predecessor, rather than the expected 600W. Videocardz speculates that Nvidia could be holding back for the inevitable RTX 4090 Ti follow-up, with a rumoured 144 Streaming Multiprocessors bringing the CUDA core count up to 18,432, but that’s all unconfirmed for now.
The leaker then followed up in mid-July with claims that the RTX 4090 desktop GPU scored higher than 19,000 points in 3DMark’s Time Spy Extreme benchmark test. If true, it’d make the RTX 4090 the most powerful Nvidia card to date, scoring almost double the standard RTX 3090 and even beating the current number 1 score achieved by an LN2-cooled EVGA RTX 3090 Ti Kingpin Edition by an impressive 30%.
It’s a single, non-specific score with no context so it should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it certainly looks promising if true.
Separately,
images of the RTX 4090 GPU are doing the rounds online, giving us a good look at the alleged cooling solution for the top-end GPU. Per the leaked images, it looks similar to the cooling solution in the RTX 3090 Ti, suggesting Nvidia is keeping its dual-axial fan design, though with more fins within its heatsink.
There are also images of what’s claimed to be the RTX 4090 Ti frame, though there’s healthy speculation that it could just be a very good Photoshop attempt. Nvidia has to get the RTX 4090 out of the door first, after all!
Nvidia 40 Series rumoured spec
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090GPUAD104-275AD103-300AD102-300Streaming Multiprocessors––126CUDA Cores7,16810,24016,384VRAM10GB GDDR516GB GDDR6X24GB GDDR6XMemory Speed18Gbps21Gbps21GbpsTDP300W420W450WRelated content
