Expect Nvidia to offer more generous amounts of VRAM with their RTX 40 series
Hardware leakers have started talking about Nvidia’s RTX 40 series of graphics cards, signalling that Nvidia will be offering more generous amounts of video memory with their upcoming Lovelace series of graphics cards.
While Nvidia’s RTX 4090 allegedly offering users 24GB of GDDR6X memory, like its predecessor, the RTX 3090, Nvidia’s RTX 4080 is said to offer users 16GB of GDDR6X memory. That represents a 60% increase in graphics memory over Nvidia’s standard RTX 3080 10GB graphics card.For Nvidia’s RTX 4070, Nvidia’s reportedly offering users 12GB of GDDR6 memory, giving users a 50% increase in GPU memory over today’s RTX 3070 graphics cards. This cements an expectation that future games will utilise more GPU memory, especially when targeting high resolutions like 4K, 5K or 8K.
Sadly, it is unknown how many CUDA cores Nvidia’s RTX 40 series will offer, of what architectural enhancements the RTX 40 series will deliver over their predecessors. That said, we expect to see significant performance gains from Nvidia’s RTX 40 series products, especially if their higher-end models start targeting higher TGP (total graphics power) ratings.
Nvidia’s RTX 4090 is reportedly designed to consume up to 600 watts of power, while the RTX 4080 is said to have a similar TGP (we have estimated a value of 500W). Nvidia’s RTX 4070 is said to consume 300 watts of power, which likely means that Nvidia’s RTX 4070 will run at lower clock speeds and likely be more power efficient than its larger counterparts.
The RTX 40 series is due to launch in Q3 or Q4 of 2022, with some sources claiming that Nvidia is targeting a September/October release timeframe.
