Today at Computex, NVIDIA announced its latest graphics cards, the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti. Dubbing the RTX 3080 Ti the new “gaming flagship” of its 30 series lineup, you’ll find that it’s 1.5x faster than the RTX 2080 Ti at 4K gameplay, and the 3070 Ti “supercharges” the company’s most popular 30 series card, as it’s 1.5x faster than the RTX 2070 super. What do these numbers mean, and how easy will it be able to pick up these cards? Well, let’s take a look at the founders editions, as well as third-party board partner cards below.
NVIDIA’s RTX 3080 Ti is the new “gaming flagship”
While the 3080 was the original gaming flagship card from NVIDIA, the 3080 Ti aims to take that throne away. It is designed to handle both rasterized and ray-traced games with ease, offering quite a bit of performance boost from previous-generation cards. Coming in at $1,199, this card does cost quite a bit more than the 3080, which launched at $699. However, from early reports, we’re seeing that the 3080 Ti could possibly game at 3090 levels for some titles, which would mean that you’re getting a $1,499 card for $1,199 here.
The 3080 Ti isn’t just a boosted card on paper, either, as NVIDIA loaded it down with 12GB of GDDR6X memory, which is a decent upgrade from the 10GGB of GDDR6X that the RTX 3080 shipped with.
NVIDIA’s RTX 3070 Ti could take over as the best-selling card at $599
While the 3080 Ti saw a price increase of $600 over the 3080, the 3070 Ti is slated to cost just $599, which is only up $100 over the original 3070. Though the price might not be as big of a jump, the performance sure is. The 3080 shipped with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, but that didn’t stop NVIDIA from putting GDDR6X in the 3070 Ti. You’ll also find a boosted base clock and more CUDA cores in the 3070 Ti when compared to the original 3070, giving better performance all around.
PNY is onboard from the start with NVIDIA’s RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti launch
One of the first board partners to join forces with NVIDIA for the launch of its latest cards is PNY. You’ll find that the company is launching both models of cards with its unique XLR8 designs, which include additional cooling and RGB colorings that founders editions just can’t match.
PNY’s RTX 3080 Ti ships with the ability to overclock from the factory, which is assisted by the VelocityX control software that allows for customizing and monitoring critical parts of your card like the core and memory clocks, core temperature, fan speed, and more. It lets you fine-tune the graphics card to get the most performance possible with a simple interface.
Pricing and availability
You’ll find that the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti will retail for $599 as a founders edition, and third-party board partners’ pricing will vary. The RTX 3080 Ti will start at $1,199 and go up from there, depending on what overclocks and tweaks are done at the factory. All cards are slated to be available in early June via Amazon, Best Buy, and other authorized retailers.
Electronicsforward’ take
The biggest question on everyone’s mind is not whether these new cards will perform well, but whether or not they’ll be able to buy them. I can attest to how powerful the RTX 3080 is, as I currently have a system with one installed in for review (more on that in the coming weeks.)
Something that NVIDIA, PNY, or other board partners have yet to clarify is whether or not supply will be available for people to actually buy, and that’s what we’re waiting to see. Hopefully, NVIDIA and partners have figured out how to actually get these cards into the hands of gamers, but only time will tell.
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