Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series offered a significant jump in performance compared to the RTX 20 Series, and rumours suggest we could be seeing a similar jump from the next-gen RTX 40 Series currently in development behind closed doors at Nvidia HQ.
Though we’re still a while away from a rumoured release, leaks point towards a 5nm process node running Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace GPU architecture that could offer a 2x jump in performance. Here’s all there is to know about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Series right now.
When will the Nvidia RTX 40 Series be released?
Nvidia’s next-gen RTX 40 series of graphics card aren’t due for release in 2021 – but given the two-year gap between the RTX 20 series and RTX 30 series, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
According to Twitter leaker @Greymon55, the graphics cards will launch “no earlier than end of 2022” which aligns with previous Nvidia graphics card releases, which tend to appear towards the end of the year, although the leaker has also suggested that this could potentially slip into Q1 2023, which runs from January – March 2021.
The latter makes a lot of sense, especially with Nvidia confirming a 2023 release of its Grace server chip based on the same rumoured 5nm process as the RTX 40 Series.
That’s not to say we won’t be getting new Nvidia graphics cards between now and the end of 2022 though; just like with previous generations of GPU, Nvidia is expected to release new models of 30 Series GPU through 2022 to tide hungry gamers over until the next-gen release.
Plus, a Q1 2023 release could be a good thing, hopefully giving Nvidia (and everybody else) enough time to get over the current component shortage causing manufacturing chaos throughout the tech industry.
How much will the Nvidia RTX 40 Series cost?
We’re still some time away from the release of the Nvidia RTX 40 Series, so it’s hard to say how much the next-gen range might cost right now – although we can look at the current RTX 30 Series as a guide.
As a reminder, here’s what the current RTX 30 Series line-up looks like:
Starting at just £299/$329, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 comes in cheaper than competing GPUs from AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 Series, and it’s hoped that Nvidia will keep that trend going with the next-gen 40 Series – after all, there were significant jumps in performance in the 30 Series compared to its predecessor and it was still competitively priced.
The issue, as most of you reading this article will be painfully aware of, is the lack of stock, driving GPU prices through the roof with resellers marking up prices to never seen before levels – it’s not uncommon to see an RTX 3070, a £469/$499 card, go for double that amount. The worst part? People are actually paying those prices.
Nvidia could see that gamers are willing to pay much more than the MSRP for its graphics cards, which could incentivise the company to increase the price across the range for the RTX 40 Series – something rumoured to be happening with the competing AMD Radeon RX 7000 Series.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen though; I think we all need a break from pricey GPUs after the current shortage ends.
What to expect from the Nvidia RTX 40 Series
5nm Ada Lovelace architecture
Twitter leaker @Greymon55 suggests that Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 Series will be based on the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture – a figure associated with the creation are what are considered to be the first computer programs back in the 1800s for those unaware.
It’s also suggested that the new range will be based on TSMC’s 5nm process node, down from 8nm on the current range. What isn’t known right now is whether it’s based on the standard N5 or N5P node.
Performance improvements
Despite the huge gains in performance the RTX 30 Series offered over the 20 Series, the RTX 40 Series is expected to offer a similar boost in performance when compared to the current top-end RTX 3090 – a graphics card with an MSRP of £1399/$1499.
The rumour comes from Twitter leaker @TtLexington, who suggests that the Nvidia RTX 40 Series could offer the same general performance jump over the RTX 30 Series, offering a rough 2x jump in overall performance, courtesy of the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and 5nm chipset at the heart of the range.
That backs up an earlier rumour that suggests the Lovelace AD102 GPU computes at an impressive 66.4 TFLOPs, compared to the 38.7 TFLOPs of compute power on offer from the current Ampere GA102 chip. It also suggests a boosted 144 streaming multiprocessors and a maximum 18,432 CUDA cores – almost double that of the RTX 3090.
It’s also rumoured that the new RTX 40 Series could feature clock speeds between 2.2 and 2.5GHz (boosted), offering a decent jump from the current 1.7-1.9GHz clock speeds on offer from the current Ampere architecture. It’s still not enough to beat the 2.5GHz on offer from AMD’s competing RDNA 2 architecture available right now, however, let alone what AMD could be cooking up with its upcoming RDNA 3-based range.
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