NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Could Arrive With 21Gbps GDDR6X Memory And This Key Upgrade
Everyone's waiting with bated breath for the GPU shortage to abate, with current models perpetually out of stock and gamers paying out the nose for ultra-scarce hardware just to play a bit of Halo. We might see some relief early next year though, in the form of new GPU releases -- especially if TSMC is right about that chip hoarding report.
Though not exactly "new," per se—at least, not in NVIDIA's case. What we're talking about is the long-rumored RTX 3000 series refresh. Just as NVIDIA did with Turing, folks are expecting Jensen and Co. to release refreshed models of the RTX 3000-series "Ampere" GPUs early next year. If you're surprised by that news, keep in mind that it's already been more than a year since the RTX 3080 hit the market.
The latest news on this topic concerns the top-end card, presumably to be called the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, or possibly RTX 3090 SUPER.
According to a tweet by Taiwanese tech site Uniko's Hardware (reproduced above), that card will be using a specific Micron GDDR6X package with model number MT61K512M32KPA-21U. That specific model doesn't appear in Micron's part catalog yet, but we can deduce from the model number that it is not only double the density of the extant GDDR6X modules, but that it also runs at a higher 21 Gbps transfer rate.
According to a tweet by Taiwanese tech site Uniko's Hardware (reproduced above), that card will be using a specific Micron GDDR6X package with model number MT61K512M32KPA-21U. That specific model doesn't appear in Micron's part catalog yet, but we can deduce from the model number that it is not only double the density of the extant GDDR6X modules, but that it also runs at a higher 21 Gbps transfer rate.
Slapped into the configuration of the existing RTX 3090, that would give the GPU some 1,008 GB/sec of memory bandwidth—about an 8% improvement over the 936 GB/sec of the current card. In combination with rumors that the refreshed mega-GPU will have the GA102 chip's full complement of 84 streaming multiprocessors enabled (for 10,720 CUDA cores), that means we're looking at a real monster of a graphics card, with increase compute performance, memory capacity, and bandwidth.
Of course, if other rumors hold true, it might be even more monstrous than we think. Supposedly, this super-GeForce will be both hot and power-thirsty as well; Twitter leaker Greymon55 previously claimed that the revised 3090 would get spec'd for a "400W+" total board power. That's nowhere near as high as the rumored power budget for NVIDIA's next-generation parts, but it's still thirsty enough to make us concerned for our power supplies.
Thanks to Videocardz for the tip.
