Question 'Ampere'/Next-gen gaming uarch speculation thread

[Ottonomous]

How much is the Samsung 7nm EUV process expected to provide in terms of gains?
How will the RTX components be scaled/developed?
Any major architectural enhancements expected?
Will VRAM be bumped to 16/12/12 for the top three?
Will there be further fragmentation in the lineup? (Keeping turing at cheaper prices, while offering 'beefed up RTX' options at the top?)
Will the top card be capable of >4K60, at least 90?
Would Nvidia ever consider an HBM implementation in the gaming lineup?
Will Nvidia introduce new proprietary technologies again?

Sorry if imprudent/uncalled for, just interested in the forum member's thoughts.

 

[A///]

Software/stability and top tier performance has always been what has brought me back to NVIDIA time and time again for my main box. My kids get AMD cards.

Sorry?

I'm not sure if this is you punishing them or they don't care...

I would love for AMD to invest heavily in their driver/software teams because it does seem like their hardware is solid and usually underutilized/optimized for by drivers/software. Hopefully NVIDIA and AIBs figure out this 3000 series mess, Samsung can make some progress on "8nm" and availability and quality improve over the next few months.

Rumor on the digital street is that Zen engineers were temporarily moved to RTG to help with the team there.

 

[Glo.]

Rumor on the digital street is that Zen engineers were temporarily moved to RTG to help with the team there.

Its not a Rumor, its a true fact that Physical design engineers went to RTG specifically to work on RDNA2 GPUs.

But in the context of what you are talking about, Physical design engineers have absolutely zero to do with Driver/Software team.

 

[KompuKare]

Laptops? Initially I thought you were talking about the VRM failures but those resulted in melting cards and cards smoked out by a mini-fire.

Well, laptops was the most well-know part of this.
This was during the transition to lead-free solder happened and Nvidia used the wrong under-fill.
Personally, the first part which went bad for me was 8800GT, then later I encountered a nForce chipsets, and the most annoying one was this AiO with an MXM 8400M (AFAIR) where the onboard Intel HD would have been okay but there was no way to enable it. Baking revived the 8800GT a few times, which is why find the image of JHH with his oven so worringly amusing.

 

[ozzy702]

Sorry?

I'm not sure if this is you punishing them or they don't care...

Rumor on the digital street is that Zen engineers were temporarily moved to RTG to help with the team there.

LOL, I have four kids, I'm not spending NVIDIA money on their boxes when dirt cheap 580s get the job done for 1080p 60hz and the games they play. They're less picky than I am, don't know any better and beggars can't be choosers.

We'll see. I have a dozen or so close friends in the same boat as me. They were all about snagging a 3080 but then the availability issues and now the stability nonsense have us all thinking we'll hold off for a few months to see what RDNA2 brings and how NVIDIA responds. Maybe AIB revisions on the 20Gb models, who knows. I don't plan on moving to 4k anytime soon so whatever GPU I buy this go around will probably be what I use for the next 3-5 years, which is way longer than my normal upgrade cycle.

Maybe if RDNA2 sells well AMD will actually fund their driver/software teams well enough to be on par with NVIDIA.

 

[A///]

LOL, I have four kids, I'm not spending NVIDIA money on their boxes when dirt cheap 580s get the job done for 1080p 60hz and the games they play. They're less picky than I am, don't know any better and beggars can't be choosers.

We'll see. I have a dozen or so close friends in the same boat as me. They were all about snagging a 3080 but then the availability issues and now the stability nonsense have us all thinking we'll hold off for a few months to see what RDNA2 brings and how NVIDIA responds. Maybe AIB revisions on the 20Gb models, who knows. I don't plan on moving to 4k anytime soon so whatever GPU I buy this go around will probably be what I use for the next 3-5 years, which is way longer than my normal upgrade cycle.

Maybe if RDNA2 sells well AMD will actually fund their driver/software teams well enough to be on par with NVIDIA.

Oh that makes sense. What do they play? I have no idea what kids play nowadays.

Even with RDNA2 I'll be holding off on building because of other more important issues and also demand outstripping supply for the first few months. Hopefully AMD don't release all their processors at the same time again. Keep something in the chamber for Intel's RKL if it pops its head out of the gopher hole in 2021.

The 20 GB 3080s will likely come out in late Q1 2021, IMO. It should give them enough time to properly test everything. 20 GB should be solid for gaming for the next 2-3 years or more depending on how bad Hopper turns out to be.

Yeah, AMD made a lot of changes after they became flush with cash with Zen 2. They're going wild with hiring sprees for IC people, software engineers, ASIC and FPGA specialists/engineers, designers, etc. They promoted Alex Starr who'll improve their internal testing and simulations. They went on a huge pre and post silicon validation engineer run back in September of 2019. I counted maybe 100-150 positions globally. Michael Mantor got fellow'd years ago but his oversight should begin to show with RDNA2 if it wasn't on RDNA. We'll probably have to get used to AMD keeping quiet from now on. Su was quoted saying under promise, over deliver. Keep quiet, be conservative with numbers, internally aim high for the stars. Keep disappointment low, pass expectations.

Not to get off topic since it pisses people off, but it was suggested that Ampere development began 3-4 years ago when mining was a hot issue. I don't think JHH is that narrowminded to believe it'll last forever. We may very well hear more problems about the 30 series leak and show overtime. It's disappointing because my heart was set on picking up a 3080 in December if I could/once supplies normalized. The TUF was and still is the best looking. Understated if not bland. No glittery goop on it. Works well. If the caps are the only thing that ails the boards then this is a safe model. It'll be high in demand until everything else is RMA'd and fixed unless a vBIOS is pushed out and newer card revisions get physical fixes or the new vBIOS.

 

[ozzy702]

Oh that makes sense. What do they play? I have no idea what kids play nowadays.

The 20 GB 3080s will likely come out in late Q1 2021, IMO. It should give them enough time to properly test everything. 20 GB should be solid for gaming for the next 2-3 years or more depending on how bad Hopper turns out to be.

Yeah, AMD made a lot of changes after they became flush with cash with Zen 2. They're going wild with hiring sprees for IC people, software engineers, ASIC and FPGA specialists/engineers, designers, etc. They promoted Alex Starr who'll improve their internal testing and simulations. They went on a huge pre and post silicon validation engineer run back in September of 2019. I counted maybe 100-150 positions globally. Michael Mantor got fellow'd years ago but his oversight should begin to show with RDNA2 if it wasn't on RDNA. We'll probably have to get used to AMD keeping quiet from now on. Su was quoted saying under promise, over deliver. Keep quiet, be conservative with numbers, internally aim high for the stars. Keep disappointment low, pass expectations.

Not to get off topic since it pisses people off, but it was suggested that Ampere development began 3-4 years ago when mining was a hot issue. I don't think JHH is that narrowminded to believe it'll last forever. We may very well hear more problems about the 30 series leak and show overtime. It's disappointing because my heart was set on picking up a 3080 in December if I could/once supplies normalized. The TUF was and still is the best looking. Understated if not bland. No glittery goop on it. Works well. If the caps are the only thing that ails the boards then this is a safe model. It'll be high in demand until everything else is RMA'd and fixed unless a vBIOS is pushed out and newer card revisions get physical fixes or the new vBIOS.

From memory, Minecraft, Monster Hunter World, Lego games, Ori and the Blind Forest, Broforce, and a bunch of indie games.

That's great news that they've been funding development. I have no fanboi allegiance to Intel or NVIDIA, and am fairly sure my next platform will be whatever Ryzen is released on DDR5 so if AMD actually starts bringing the same execution to the GPU side that they have on the CPU side I could totally see my next rig being Red/Red.

I agree, the Asus TUF looks like a great 3080 and seems to perform well. Also agree that 20GB should be golden for many years to come so I'm being more choosy on this purchase than many in the past.

 

[jpiniero]

The 20 GB 3080s will likely come out in late Q1 2021, IMO.

Should be way sooner than that. They might slow things down due to the AIB production issues but I think they intended it to be announced around Big Navi's release and released shortly thereafter. Even then I would expect it to be no later than CES.

 

[A///]

From memory, Minecraft, Monster Hunter World, Lego games, Ori and the Blind Forest, Broforce, and a bunch of indie games.

I know Minecraft and Monster Hunter World. The others I've heard of but never looked into. NVidia's b-stock site sells older cards for cheap with 2 or 3 year warranties sometimes. Could also check there.

That's great news that they've been funding development. I have no fanboi allegiance to Intel or NVIDIA, and am fairly sure my next platform will be whatever Ryzen is released on DDR5 so if AMD actually starts bringing the same execution to the GPU side that they have on the CPU side I could totally see my next rig being Red/Red.

It benefits everyone to have all three companies offer up quality hardware in the dGPU market. It keeps prices reasonable and it forces them to keep delivering a better product all the time.

I agree, the Asus TUF looks like a great 3080 and seems to perform well. Also agree that 20GB should be golden for many years to come so I'm being more choosy on this purchase than many in the past.

I'm more of a 1440p person and 4K hurts my eyes unless I wear computer glasses. I don't like how scaling works on Windows 10, but I'm told this is in the works... 20 GB should be great for textures in that time, and if you do any creative work the extra VRAM will be good and you won't need the 3090, especially because of the poor performance difference. Jay posted something on Cycles with the 3090. There's a lot of premium render engines that offer better biased/unbiased and are faster or slower depending on how good they are. I can see companies like Adobe placing emphasis on using the GPU more and more in coordination with the CPU to speed things up.

 

[A///]

Should be way sooner than that. They might slow things down due to the AIB production issues but I think they intended it to be announced around Big Navi's release and released shortly thereafter. Even then I would expect it to be no later than CES.

I'm not sure I want to believe in NVidia's claims of delivering a product on time. Weren't they producing these cards in August? That's cutting it short. I'm seeing weird leaks online that I take with a continent of salt with in regard to Team Red. If it's true, I don't think 20 GB is gonna help with a poor product. RTX Voice isn't an important feature, IMO. The drive access API is and I don't for a second believe AMD hasn't implemented such a situation having worked with MS and Sony on their products. MS is supposed to release the API next year, IIRC. The big benefit of the Xbox this time around is how close it mimics an actual PC from the ground up. We should see gaming on Windows develop rapidly in the coming years. I'd give it 2-3 years before we begin seeing studios take advantage of it.

DirectStorage is coming to PC - DirectX Developer Blog

Earlier this year, Microsoft showed the world how the Xbox Series X, with its portfolio of technology innovations, will introduce a new era of no-compromise gameplay. Alongside the actual console announcements, we unveiled the Xbox Velocity Architecture, a key part of how the Xbox Series X will...

devblogs.microsoft.com

Console refreshes may see PCIe 5.0 SSDs in use. There is always a usecase for faster and faster speeds, something the gaming community can't grasp because they personally don't see the point. I've worked with a few companies who have 1,500-2,000 SSD solutions including NVME only options or a few hundred HDD with the rest in SSD. There exists a market where speed and storage is critical for workflow. PCIe 6 for client may arrive on the scene in 2025-2026 and it should open a breadth of options for these companies and end-users who demand the very best.

DDR5 went into risk production in late December or this past January, and SK Hynix began development on DDR6 in December 2018, IIRC. I'm not up to date on what happens after DDR5, but things get interesting for all parties. Cooler than having your first beer.... whenever that was.

 

[jpiniero]

I'm not sure I want to believe in NVidia's claims of delivering a product on time. Weren't they producing these cards in August? That's cutting it short.

There really isn't that much difference engineering wise - it's just a 3080 with double the memory chips like the 3090. Plus we are talking about at least a month from now.

 

[A///]

There really isn't that much difference engineering wise - it's just a 3080 with double the chips like the 3090. Plus we are talking about at least a month from now.

The GDDR6X runs hot and has speed issues. It's not as simple as NVidia designing a blueprint and plopping down the chips in open spaces. I'm not sure I want to place faith in them or the AIB partners in not screwing up at this point. If NVidia is approving these AIB partner designers then do you really think there aren't other problems waiting to arise?

 

[jpiniero]

The GDDR6X runs hot and has speed issues. It's not as simple as NVidia designing a blueprint and plopping down the chips in open spaces.

That work already has been done, as evidenced by the 3090.

 

[A///]

That work already has been done, as evidenced by the 3090.

Different speeds, different sized chips, different BUS, etc. If you didn't catch it, the 3090s are also plagued with issues, not just the 3080s.

 

[jpiniero]

Different speeds, different sized chips, different BUS, etc.

Right, but the double memory chips would be the biggest issue. It's not hard to assume they planned on a 20 GB 3080.

 

[A///]

Right, but the double memory chips would be the biggest issue. It's not hard to assume they planned on a 20 GB 3080.

They also planned the launch products, approved partner designs and then this happened. Tell you what, I don't want to take this thread off topic since I have an annoying habit of going on long rants. If in 180 days from now/6 months NVidia and their AIB partners have not faced more issues, then I'll apologize to you and say you were right and I was wrong and over-worrying. Scouts honor.

 

[Heartbreaker]

The GDDR6X runs hot and has speed issues.

GDDR6X itself doesn't run hot. I think you are mixing up the FE issue from Igor's lab. That problem is a VRM generating heat too close to a memory chip, heating it up.

 

[A///]

GDDR6X itself doesn't run hot. I think you are mixing up the FE issue from Igor's lab. That problem is a VRM generating heat too close to a memory chip, heating it up.

Igor said he believed those running near a VRM, and in this case, just one, ran hotter than those further from a VRM or elsewhere. GDDR6X most definitely has a temp cap and GDDR6X is rated higher than what NVidia have set up. 21 Gbps vs 19 Gbps on the cards. Rumor has it NVidia could not keep temperatures under control at higher than 19 Gbps.

The 30 series brings a lot of new into the mix so it's hard to say it's the caps alone causing the issue. I'll frame it this way. You could have a Ph.D in electrical engineering and work in the field for 30 years. And you could easily mess this up with a team of similar minds. Things get messy fast with complicated builds. NVidia may have very well tested for months if not a year and they may have missed things real world usage by actual gamers who spend hours in front of a computer will experience. There is no one good or bad cap. Things get really difficult after a certain point.

 

[Konan]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Will Have 512 More Cores Than The RTX 2080 Ti

Hmmm around 2080 S levels.... possibly

 

[MrTeal]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Will Have 512 More Cores Than The RTX 2080 Ti

Hmmm around 2080 S levels.... possibly

Yeah, that article is terrible. There’s no way the 3060 Ti is hitting 2080 Ti levels with 4864 Ampere cores. It reads like something put together by a random staff writer who hasn’t bothered to even read a single 3080 review.

 

[Konan]

Yeah, that article is terrible. There’s no way the 3060 Ti is hitting 2080 Ti levels with 4864 Ampere cores. It reads like something put together by a random staff writer who hasn’t bothered to even read a single 3080 review.

Based on the proposed specs where do you think it will land?

 

[Bouowmx]

Checking Tom's Hardware Graphics card ranking: If RTX 3070 = 2080 Ti/TITAN RTX, then the 3060 Ti ~ 2080 SUPER/2080, since the 3060 Ti is around 83% of the 3070.

Spoiler: Tom's Hardware Graphics cards ranking, 3840x2160 Ultra

3060 Ti going for 350 USD like the 2060 (at launch) makes sense.

 

[MrTeal]

Based on the proposed specs where do you think it will land?

Checking Tom's Hardware Graphics card ranking: If RTX 3070 = 2080 Ti/TITAN RTX, then the 3060 Ti ~ 2080 SUPER/2080, since the 3060 Ti is around 83% of the 3070.
3060 Ti going for 350 USD like the 2060 (at launch) makes sense.

That's if Nvidia's claim that the 3070 matches the 2080 Ti is across a broad spectrum of games, and not in Control at 4k RTX DLSS 2.0 but it's 10% back everywhere else. I'd probably slot the 3060 Ti in somewhere around a 2080S like you guys or a hair above, which if it is $350 is still a pretty decent upgrade.

 

[PlanetJosh]

Maybe it's just a few off or bad 3080 and 3090 cards that got sent out and it will all be fixed in short order. I feel a little guilty for slightly gloating over those game crash reports because I'm not buying for a few months in case a faster Nvidia card comes out to top the 3090. From rumors but still gonna wait.

Such a card if it comes out may just be a few fps faster than a 3090 but doesn't matter. I want it. With that logic I should try to get lucky at get a 3090 as soon as I can. Then if I get it by year end and a faster card is released 2 or 3 months later simply replace the 3090.

edit - I'll watch the Cyberpower site maybe they'll have some pre built with a 3090 soon with a short wait I don't know. They don't require it to ship with liquid cooling. I'll try air cooled first.

 

[Stuka87]

Maybe it's just a few off or bad 3080 and 3090 cards that got sent out and it will all be fixed in short order. I feel a little guilty for slightly gloating over those game crash reports because I'm not buying for a few months in case a faster Nvidia card comes out to top the 3090. From rumors but still gonna wait.

Such a card if it comes out may just be a few fps faster than a 3090 but doesn't matter. I want it. With that logic I should try to get lucky at get a 3090 as soon as I can. Then if I get it by year end and a faster card is released 2 or 3 months later simply replace the 3090.

edit - I'll watch the Cyberpower site maybe they'll have some pre built with a 3090 soon with a short wait I don't know. They don't require it to ship with liquid cooling. I'll try air cooled first.

Why do you want a 3090 so bad? They are barely faster than a 3080, but consume unheard of amounts of power. Some of the AIB cards hit almost 450W during gaming. I guess if you literally have cash to burn, then go for it. But almost twice the price for 5-10% performance is nuts.

 

[Markfw]

Why do you want a 3090 so bad? They are barely faster than a 3080, but consume unheard of amounts of power. Some of the AIB cards hit almost 450W during gaming. I guess if you literally have cash to burn, then go for it. But almost twice the price for 5-10% performance is nuts.

I want one due to the over 10,000 cuda cores. For those that can afford it (I can) its worth it. I use it for DC and it seems that cuda cores are almost equal to performance.