After months of speculation, Nvidia has finally released the next generation of GPUs. RTX 4090 and RTX 4080. The RTX series is live now, and arrives in October 12th and November respectively with the RTX 4090 retailing at $1599, while RTX 4080 starts at $899.
RTX 4090 encompasses 16,384 CUDA cores with dominant clocks that go up to 2.52GHz. The card comes with 24GB of GDDR6X memory and 384-bit memory interface. Reports from Nvidia say it is 2–4x faster than the RTX 3090 Ti. It also has a power rating of 450W and runs on a single 16-pin PCIe Gen 5 or 3x 8-pin PCIe cables. There is also 1,321 Tensor-TFLOPs, 191 RT-TFLOPs, and 83 Shader-TFLOPs.
The RTX 4080 is coming in two models. The more premium variant sports 9728 CUDA cores and a 2.51GHz boost clock. It has 16GB GDDR6X memory with 256-bit interface. Nvidia claims it is 2-4x faster than the RTX 3080 Ti. This model has a power rating of 320W and is priced at $1199.
The 16GB model of the RTX 4080 isn’t just a bump to memory, though. Priced starting at $1,199, it’s more powerful, with 9,728 CUDA Cores, a base clock of 2.21GHz that boosts up to 2.51GHz, 780 Tensor-TFLOPs, 113 RT-TFLOPs, and 49 Shader-TFLOPs of power.
The 12GB The other one is the 12GB model which starts at $899 and includes 7,680 CUDA Cores, a 2.31GHz base clock that boosts up to 2.61GHz, 639 Tensor-TFLOPs, 92 RT-TFLOPs, and 40 Shader-TFLOPs. Its power rating is 285W and is priced at $899.
The RTX 4080 model will require a 700-watt power supply, with the 16GB model needing at least 750 watts. Both RTX 4080 models will launch in November.
The RTX 40-series cards will include new Nvidia ShadowPlay support to capture gameplay at up to 8K resolution at 60fps in HDR. Nvidia is also using its latest Encoders (NVENC) with support for AV1 encoding and improved efficiency for livestreams using AV1.
The launch of the new RTX series will also include Nvidia’s Founders Edition graphics cards. Which are the GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 (16GB) cards with their own upgraded in-house design.
Nvidia is supporting the PCIe Gen-5 16-pin connector with its own RTX 40-series cards instead of the custom solution it created for its own RTX 30-series Founders Edition GPUs. ATX 3.0 power supplies that will natively support PCIe Gen-5 16-pin connectors are arriving in October from Asus, Cooler Master, FSP, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, MSI, and Thermaltake. More models from other manufacturers are expected soon, too.
