Today marks the start of sales for the GeForce RTX 3090, Nvidia’s fastest Ampere graphics card. The issues with the RTX 3080 have shown that being fast has its advantages. Nvidia has already stated that there may be supply shortages.
Today, September 24, 2020, the fastest Ampere model from Nvidia, the GeForce RTX 3090, officially launches. Following the release of the RTX 3080 last week, the fastest model is now officially available.
When does sales start? The American site Videocardz tweeted that the review embargo and sales start at the same time, specifically at 3:00 PM German time:
From then on, we will also know how the GeForce RTX 3090 performs in tests.
RTX 3090 vs 3080 – is the price increase really worth it?
Skepticism about the performance of the RTX 3090: There are already some leaks regarding the performance of the RTX 3090 (via videocardz.com).
The leaks currently suggest only 5 to 15% more performance than the GeForce RTX 3080, but the price is nearly double: While the RTX 3080 Founder Edition costs 699 euros, Nvidia demands 1499 euros for the RTX 3090 Founder Edition. From a player’s perspective, the leaks do not provide a compelling reason to pay this premium.
Especially in the 4K range, the additional performance is only expected to be around 5% (via notebookcheck.com), which makes the RTX 3090 hardly an alternative for gamers compared to the RTX 3080.
Who is the graphics card aimed at? Nvidia targets the “unique user group” of creators, researchers, and “extreme gamers”. With 8K, Nvidia primarily focuses on gaming enthusiasts and very performance-intensive fields such as rendering. 8K gaming has not yet played a significant role.
GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 comparison
| GeForce RTX 3080 | GeForce RTX 3090 | |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA CUDA cores | 8704 | 10496 |
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 4.0 |
| Base clock | 1.449 MHz | 1.400 MHz |
| Boost clock | 1.710 MHz | 1.700 MHz |
| Memory size | 10 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory speed | 19 GB/s | 19.5 GB/s |
| Bandwidth | 760 GB/s | 936 GB/s |
| TDP (Power) | 320 Watts | 350 Watts |
GeForce RTX 3090 on Amazon:
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Geforce: RTX 3090 price and availability
What is the price of the RTX 3090? The suggested retail price of the RTX 3080 is set at 1499 dollars/1499 euros according to Nvidia. Thus, the RTX 3090 is the most expensive model in Nvidia’s new 3000 series.
If you are interested in custom models, which typically come out a bit later than the Founders Edition, you should expect to pay a little more. Usually, custom models cost about 100 euros more, but it can be more depending on the performance increase.
Can you pre-order the RTX 3090? No, pre-ordering is not possible. Although there are now preliminary product pages in some shops, you cannot pre-order. You will have to wait until 3:00 PM.
What does Nvidia say about availability? Nvidia itself stated in a blog post that the graphics card will only be available in limited quantities:
As we have built the GeForce RTX 3090 for a unique user group, much like the TITAN RTX before, we would like to apologize in advance for the fact that it will only be available in limited quantities on launch day. We understand that this is frustrating, and we are working with our partners to increase supply over the coming weeks.
Source: Nvidia.com
What alternatives are there? If you do not want to buy the RTX 3090 or it is already sold out, there are still a few alternatives:
- You could go for the RTX 3080, which is suitable for 4K. However, the RTX 3080 is currently only available in limited quantities. We have summarized the tests of the RTX 3080 and for whom the card is worthwhile.
- Also interesting would be the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, if you can buy it used for under 500 €. The variants with large video memory are also suitable for 4K, if you are willing to forgo ultra settings. Or you can wait for the RTX 3070, which is set to launch in October and should also cost around 500 euros.
- Alternatively, you can wait for the Radeon RX 6000 series from AMD. However, not much is known yet about AMD’s new graphics card series, which is primarily referred to as “Big Navi”.
Where can you buy the graphics card? You can find all the options for where to buy the new Ampere graphics cards from Nvidia in this overview on MeinMMO:
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