Nvidia has officially unveiled its new slate of next-generation graphics cards, and it's looking like PC gamers have a lot to get excited about. The tech giant released details on three new GPUs: the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and a new high-end RTX 3090, which Nvidia refers to as the "BFGPU" in an excellent reference to one of DOOM's most iconic weapons.
Of the three new cards announced last night, the GeForce RTX 3080 is being hailed as the core GPU of the bunch. Certainly, it's the one that will no doubt get the most attention in the coming months, as it straddles that fine line between affordable and powerful. The 3080 is being billed as a successor to the RTX 2080 Ti, which itself was the most powerful mainstream graphics card available.
The RTX 3080 will set customers back $700/£650, when it releases on September 17th. What's really impressive is that Nvidia states the new card performs up to twice as fast as the 2080 Ti, which cost nearly twice as much at $1200. Double the performance for half the price sounds pretty great to me. Nvidia also explained that the 3080 uses GDDR6X memory rated at 19Gbps, and can hit 4K 60fps in the majority of titles with ray tracing enabled.
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The RTX 3070 model will be the most affordable of the three, coming in October for $500/£470. Nvidia claims that this model also performs better that than the 2080 Ti. It just won't be twice as impressive. Still, with 8GB of GDDR6 memory, it's set to be a meaty little bit of hardware all the same.
Finally there's the RTX 3090, which is really only for the most serious players out there. That's not to say not everybody would appreciate this beastly piece of kit... but at a price point of $1500/£1400, you're going to really need to think about just how much of an upgrade you need. This monster launches September 24th, if you maybe want to think about getting some pennies together.
Those that are lucky enough to be able to splurge so much money on a GPU will be rewarded, however. The 3090 packs an eye-watering 24GB of GDDR6X memory and a three-slot "flow-through" cooler, which can keep the card 30°C colder than the Titan RTX - all while delivering 50% better performance. It's also more than capable of running games at 8k 60fps, which is... bananas.
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Whichever GPU you choose to go with (probably not the 3090), it looks like Nvidia has a pretty solid lineup planned - and all as we head towards the end of the year and the launch of next-gen consoles.
Featured Image Credit: Nvidia