Nvidia 4000 series Graphics Cards by Landon A. Opipari
Nvidia has recently announced their new line of graphics cards. Beginning the line up are the rtx 4080 and 4090. 4000 series cards all run on the 3rd generation DLSS infrastructure, allowing better framerates and more efficient ray tracing performance. Nvidia promises to double the performance gains over the rtx 3080 and 3090 respectively.
To quote Nvidia: “On the GeForce RTX 4090, gamers and creators will have 191 RT-TFLOPS of power at their disposal, compared to the 78 RT-TFLOPS of our fastest previous-gen GPU, enabling far more immersive ray-traced worlds to be rendered, at far faster speeds” (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/rtx-40-series-graphics-cards-announcements/).
The RTX 4090 was launched earlier this month, with the 4080 set to launch in November. The RTX 3070 and below don’t have successors yet, as Nvidia has only announced their high end graphics cards. The 4080 initially was set to launch alongside a 12gb weaker version. But at the last minute, Nvidia canceled all the pre-orders and recalled the product, as a result of the naming confusing customers. If they relaunch the card with a different name or price, it would likely be a mid ranged option compared to the other two cards.
The prices have seen a bump up from the last generation gpus, as the 4080 is $1199 and the 4090 is $1599. This is up from $699 and $1499 respectively. The massive price increase over the 3080 puts the 4080 in a unique spot as a more high end card. Although that is the same price as the mid generation refresh, the RTX 3080 TI.
In terms of third party GPU manufacturers (Nvidia licensed), EVGA, one of the top manufacturers, has stopped producing Nvidia cards. This was caused by irreconcilable differences in the companies, and a lack of profitability.
DLSS 3.0 is exclusive to the 4000 series, as the prior cards lack the physical hardware required for it, the “optical flow generator,” as Nvidia calls it. In addition to this, the RTX 4090 has a power draw of 450 watts and a tdp of at least 850. The 4090 is much thicker than prior cards, with the dimensions of 304mm long by 137mm wide by 61 mm thick (for the Founders or standard edition of the card).
To put the power of the 4090 in perspective, Tom’s hardware noted the following: “Looking at other GPUs, the 4090 outpaces AMD's top RX 6950 XT by 190% — as in, it's nearly three times faster. It's just over twice as fast as the RTX 3090 and 3080 Ti as well” (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-review/3).
This jump in performance is noteworthy, as the 3090 was the most powerful gpu just 2 years ago. By increasing the performance this much, applications may be able to use it for new features or faster performance.
The RTX 3000 series has seen a price decrease. With the remaining stock being sold alongside the 4000 series. The 3080 12gb variant was temporarily not in production, but recently, Nvidia have backtracked that choice.
Whatever the future holds, Nvidia have had a reputable history of improving their hardware over the generations and offering long lasting cards. As of October 2022, over 70% of the dedicated GPUs used in PCs are manufactured by Nvidia. Both AMD, and now Intel are launching new Graphics Cards this year, along with new CPU’s. Whether this shrinks Nvidia’s massive lead remains to be seen.
To quote Nvidia: “On the GeForce RTX 4090, gamers and creators will have 191 RT-TFLOPS of power at their disposal, compared to the 78 RT-TFLOPS of our fastest previous-gen GPU, enabling far more immersive ray-traced worlds to be rendered, at far faster speeds” (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/rtx-40-series-graphics-cards-announcements/).
The RTX 4090 was launched earlier this month, with the 4080 set to launch in November. The RTX 3070 and below don’t have successors yet, as Nvidia has only announced their high end graphics cards. The 4080 initially was set to launch alongside a 12gb weaker version. But at the last minute, Nvidia canceled all the pre-orders and recalled the product, as a result of the naming confusing customers. If they relaunch the card with a different name or price, it would likely be a mid ranged option compared to the other two cards.
The prices have seen a bump up from the last generation gpus, as the 4080 is $1199 and the 4090 is $1599. This is up from $699 and $1499 respectively. The massive price increase over the 3080 puts the 4080 in a unique spot as a more high end card. Although that is the same price as the mid generation refresh, the RTX 3080 TI.
In terms of third party GPU manufacturers (Nvidia licensed), EVGA, one of the top manufacturers, has stopped producing Nvidia cards. This was caused by irreconcilable differences in the companies, and a lack of profitability.
DLSS 3.0 is exclusive to the 4000 series, as the prior cards lack the physical hardware required for it, the “optical flow generator,” as Nvidia calls it. In addition to this, the RTX 4090 has a power draw of 450 watts and a tdp of at least 850. The 4090 is much thicker than prior cards, with the dimensions of 304mm long by 137mm wide by 61 mm thick (for the Founders or standard edition of the card).
To put the power of the 4090 in perspective, Tom’s hardware noted the following: “Looking at other GPUs, the 4090 outpaces AMD's top RX 6950 XT by 190% — as in, it's nearly three times faster. It's just over twice as fast as the RTX 3090 and 3080 Ti as well” (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-review/3).
This jump in performance is noteworthy, as the 3090 was the most powerful gpu just 2 years ago. By increasing the performance this much, applications may be able to use it for new features or faster performance.
The RTX 3000 series has seen a price decrease. With the remaining stock being sold alongside the 4000 series. The 3080 12gb variant was temporarily not in production, but recently, Nvidia have backtracked that choice.
Whatever the future holds, Nvidia have had a reputable history of improving their hardware over the generations and offering long lasting cards. As of October 2022, over 70% of the dedicated GPUs used in PCs are manufactured by Nvidia. Both AMD, and now Intel are launching new Graphics Cards this year, along with new CPU’s. Whether this shrinks Nvidia’s massive lead remains to be seen.