Nvidia has revealed its new “monster” flagship GPU, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, in an announcement at CES 2022. The company also revealed other new products, including an update to its laptop GPU line. This comes after recently teasing gamers about a Nvidia special broadcast which promised “exciting news” and “breakthroughs.”
Although the 3090 Ti was mentioned briefly at the end of the presentation, it’s the most significant takeaway for gamers interested in high-performance GPUs. With Nvidia only just teasing the RTX 3090 Ti, there’s no benchmark data to see how the card will perform in real world terms. However, this new model ought to please VR enthusiasts and those interested in 4k gaming, with a memory clock boost of 7.7% and 40 teraflops of GPU performance, making it 10% faster than the RTX 3090 on paper.
Nvidia previously released the RTX 3090 Founders Edition in September 2020, based on Ampere, its 2nd generation RTX architecture. The RTX 3090 Ti is also an Ampere card, using the 8nm GA102 chip, but it boasts 24GB of GDDR6X memory operating at 21Gbps. The outer design of the card looks virtually identical to the RTX 3090, with a triple-slot design and similar styling. Further details, such as pricing, power use, and game benchmarks, are yet to be released. Nvidia will be revealing more details about the RTX 3090 Ti in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Nvidia also announced other additions to its mid-range GPU line-up with the addition of the RTX 3050, a 50-class GPU which promises ray tracing at over 60FPS. This new card also uses the Ampere architecture and is intended to fill the space previously occupied by the GTX 1050 and 1650 series of cards. It comes with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and will be available from January 27th, starting at $249.
In the laptop space, Nvidia will be introducing the RTX 3080 Ti for laptops, claiming it will deliver better performance than the desktop Titan RTX. There will also be a cheaper RTX 3070 Ti, which offers 70% faster performance than RTX 2070 SUPER laptops. Nvidia promises the card will deliver “100 FPS ultra” at 1440p. Laptops featuring these new GPUs will be available from February 1st.
This refreshed line-up is welcome news for those who are keen to get an updated GPU. Gamers seeking portability will be treated to fresh choices in the laptop space, while mid-range gamers have new options over the GTX 1050 and 1650 cards, which are showing their age. The RTX 3090 Ti looks like it will provide a decent performance boost over the RTX 3090, although many questions remain about this new card. Gamers will also be justifiably concerned about price and availability once the cards hit the market, given the on-going silicon chip shortage and price gouging by retailers.
Source: The Verge, Nvidia
