Hardware & Technical Latest Nvidia Ampere Rumours

Third party 6800XTs launched today. Mark up over AMD's reference card is significant, with most of the AIB cards being 800 dollars.

Over here it was between E900 and E1050, which translates to $1070 to $1250. You had non-xt 6800s selling for $1000. Not talking about third party scalpers, but actual large outlets. All sold out. While I want a new card, and can afford, I really feel it is absolutely absurd. The benefits of the AIBs doesnt seem to be that much, so I'll see if a reference card becomes available, or will wait for prices to drop in the months to come.
 
There is essentially no benefit for most of the RX 6000 XT AIB models, other than a modest power limit increase.

What's most frustrating from my perspective is that I'd take most non-FE RTX 3080, but the FE has been the only one I've ever actually seen in stock, while on the AMD side of things, the reference 6800 XT seems like it will be the hardest to get, but is far more desirable than most AIB parts.
 

Robert Maynard

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My 6800 under-volts not too badly - down from 1.025V to 0.955V at an increase in boost clock from 2,304MHz to 2,380MHz. Nice and quiet too (it only needs to be quieter than the AIO on my CPU - and it is, quite significantly).

Tried it using FaH and it indicated a PPD of c.2.35M/day on GPU alone - a significant jump from the 5700XT it replaced (c.1.3M/day).
 
Well, the 3060 Ti is technically out. Roughly 2080 Super levels of performance, good bang for the buck, but slightly less power efficient than the 3070. Overall, seems to be a pretty solid improvement in the $400 segment, but not really much interest to me.

Some more info on the continued Ampere shortage:

I've looked at all the AIB 3080s and decided I'm really only interested in the lower-end EVGA XC3 models as they are strictly two slot, like the FE, but don't seem to have the FE's memory/VRM cooling issues. They'd fit in my Lian-Li TU150 without any problems and I wouldn't even need to remove the USB ports in my third rear I/O slots, or my bottom two intake fans. So, I've queued for those the models on EVGA's site.

In the meantime, I may as well see if I can snag a 6900XT on launch in three days. It's a lot more than I want to spend, but I'm getting a bit impatient. If I can't get one, and none of the 6800XTs I've been looking at show up in stock soon, I'll snag one of the EVGA 3080s when I make it through the queue.
 
Me, if I don't get my paid G2 Reverb preorder until Christmas, I will probably cancel it - and with that goes the need of a new GPU. I'd consider getting an Index, but I'm spoiled and don't want to compromise on visual quality.
Honestly, the current situation is simply ridiculous, in some ways the tech market is like early 90s in the USSR when limited supply meant empty shelves, long queues and extensive black market.
I just wonder why tech companies bother with price competition and MSRP, they could and probably should raise prices. I mean, it seems unlikely that this shortage of supply will be gone anytime soon.

Edit: along this goes that I'm still waiting for a refund from Expedia on an air ticket. I recently initiated a chargeback as now it is sure they won't give my money back. These days being a customer just doesn't mean anything...
 
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I just wonder why tech companies bother with price competition and MSRP, they could and probably should raise prices. I mean, it seems unlikely that this shortage of supply will be gone anytime soon.

I think they'd rather keep the official/first party prices where they are, even if they could charge significantly more, rather than risk having a lower demand for a normalized supply later, after engaging in an overt bait and switch.

Raising prices won't make them much more money, but it will harm their marketing campaigns. As long as the official MSRP is one thing, they can use that as a way to leverage perceived value. Changing the price would change the whole dynamic of comparisons after the fact, which would alienate a lot of people and tick off reviewers and other media outlets that have made recommendations based on the original prices.

The practical situation doesn't change much either way, but they want to be able to maintain the pretense of a successful launch.
 
A Netherlands retailer has apparently listed laptops with the mobile Ampere variants:

No idea if that means these parts have been officially announced to partners, or if this retailer is simply making assumptions.

Going to be interesting to seen what a laptop with a 3080 in it looks like. If recent precedent holds that Max-Q variant would be a GA102 part, but with significantly reduced clocks and power target. Still, it's hard to imagine it being less than 200w TDP, which would tie it for the hottest mobile GPUs ever.
 
I think they'd rather keep the official/first party prices where they are, even if they could charge significantly more, rather than risk having a lower demand for a normalized supply later, after engaging in an overt bait and switch.

Raising prices won't make them much more money, but it will harm their marketing campaigns. As long as the official MSRP is one thing, they can use that as a way to leverage perceived value. Changing the price would change the whole dynamic of comparisons after the fact, which would alienate a lot of people and tick off reviewers and other media outlets that have made recommendations based on the original prices.

The practical situation doesn't change much either way, but they want to be able to maintain the pretense of a successful launch.

Well, now any price inrease would be controversial, but creeping price increase IMHO could be very real.
And they could play the 'super' tactics in case supply normalizes, which seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
I am actually wondering if competition in manufacturing space whether already started a bidding war.
Also, how can a low margin console manufacturing can have its place as is, unless Sony and Microsoft lose massive amount on each unit made?

Actually AMD played it smart by offering lead-in prices on limited supllies, while AIB cards are much more expensive.
 
I am actually wondering if competition in manufacturing space whether already started a bidding war.

If the NVIDIA TSMC vs. Samsung situation is as it appears, that's exactly what happened. Apparently, NVIDIA couldn't get TSMC 7NP/7N+ at the price they wanted, which is what drive them to Samsung.

Also, how can a low margin console manufacturing can have its place as is, unless Sony and Microsoft lose massive amount on each unit made?

I'm sure economies of scale mitigates the costs to a degree, but consoles themselves have long been loss leaders. Sony and Microsoft's XBox and Playstation divisions would probably still be profitable if they were giving away the consoles for free. Licensing fees for games and peripherals, as well as service subscriptions, is where the bulk of the revenue is.
 
If the NVIDIA TSMC vs. Samsung situation is as it appears, that's exactly what happened. Apparently, NVIDIA couldn't get TSMC 7NP/7N+ at the price they wanted, which is what drive them to Samsung.

If Samsung can get their things sorted it should make sense as at this point it is not performance but availability that wins.
BTW here in Hungary the only available 3080 I've found costs €1330 - so I'll either source an FE from Germany (€700 plus €50 shipping max) keep sitting on my hands... VRAM padding be damned, I'd undervolt it anyway. :)
 
This is literally the definition of paper launch with paper pricing. I wonder if those who called out Nvidia will call out AMD as well...

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 reference desings are being discontinued

If true, and if these reports imply they are actually being discontinued (rather than just being limited to direct sales), this is one of the shortest runs I can think of.

Supposedly AIB prices are supposed to drop to the reference MSRPs, but no idea when that's supposed to occur or what models.

Both NVIDIA and AMD's launches were terrible, with AMD being slightly worse. Essentially no stock and no reviews until the day of availability.
 
I think this is good news, I hope Samsung will up their game and get seriously invested in this strategic sector.

Likely good news for supply. TSMC isn't likely to have spare capacity any time soon, even after the initial console rush tapers off.

AMD later confirmed this was NOT true.

They would be continuing to make the reference models indefinitely due to their popularity

Source: https://twitter.com/sherkelman/status/1336684121830137858


Hopefully we'll see some actual stock sooner rather than later.
 
Still haven't seen any stock of either the 3080 or the 6800XT in quite some time. At this point I may as well wait for the 3080 Ti. Fortunately, my budget keeps growing, as I set aside two ETH to pay for the as yet hypothetical new GPU I'd be putting in my no longer new system.

On another note, after playing with some more RTX games on my brother's RTX 3080, I'm fairly well convinced that ray-tracing is currently only borderline usable, even with Ampere. Few games use it particularly well, and most of those that do also require DLSS, which is problematic. DLSS 2.0 is generally better than other forms of upscaling as it preserves the detail of lines and regular patterns well, but there are still upscaling artifacts, and irregular scene components (like most natural terrain features) are a blurry mess. It's blatantly inferior to native resolution in every game I've tested, which is no particular surprise itself, but the trade-offs are almost to the point where I'd rather have RTX off. Trying to use RTX at native resolution (on either a 3440*1440 ultrawide or a 3840*2160 TV) knocks performance down to unacceptable levels.

Game ecosystem is likely a big part of these issues...everything is trying to show off RTX and sell people on DLSS, but more practical uses seem to have been neglected in the process.
 
I'm still in the "wait and see" category as well.

I'd like to bump up from my Dell 60Hz 34" to the Alienware 38" G-Sync, but my 980Ti powers ED at 60 FPS just fine for now on the 34"

I'm content to wait for a 3080Ti before making the move.
 
I'd also fancy a 3080ti, but I expect it to be unavailable for another 6 months, and by then we will see the refresh versions' launch. Its launch may very well cause 3080 constraint to ease, and it will be still what, within 5% of the peeformance range?
 
I don't think it will take six months for the supply issue to be straightened out.

A Super refresh at some future date is highly likely, but I'm not going to wait for it and I don't expect it to be any more significant than last generation's.
 
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