NVIDIA did not disappoint when they unveiled their new Ampere family of graphics cards, the next generation of RTX GPU’s, and Linus Tech Tips claims they have now made everything else “obsolete.”
Although it was expected that the new graphics cards from NVIDIA would be a big step up from the previous generation, perhaps what was most surprising was the price.
The announcement getting a lot of attention is the $499 price tag on the RTX 3070 – which is said to match the performance of a 2080 Ti, a card that costs around $1,200 (though this price will inevitably drop after these new cards launch).
Linus previews new RTX 3070 and 3080
Although Linus Sebastian of Tech Tips fame hasn’t got his hands on the cards yet, he was immediately impressed, shocked even, at what NVIDIA revealed.
“Ampere is real, and Ampere is an absolute monster,” Linus begins. “On paper, every Ampere card that was announced, even the 3070, is faster than a 2080 Ti.
Linus found that the last time the 3rd tier card in a generation was faster than the previous gens top performer, was all the way back in 2004. The 3080 is said to double the performance of the 2080 Ti, while only costing $699.
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“There’s nothing else I can say, I’m absolutely mindblown — but the question is, why?” Linus says he has “a couple of theories” why NVIDIA has dropped their prices so significantly.
Part of it could be the lower-than-expected sales of the last-gen cards, with many owners of the previous 10 series cards not convinced by the 2070 and 2080 to upgrade.
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But, another theory could be an attempt to compete with the consoles, Sony’s PS5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X. Both the 3080 and 3070 are set to launch in September and October respectively, meaning they come out before the two new consoles.
And, these prices may be low enough to lure those considering moving away from PC to the new consoles, to instead spend that money upgrading their GPU in their PC. And, for non-PC owners, this might encourage more to take up PC gaming, as not only are these new GPUs cheaper, but as a result, older and used GPUs will also go down in price.
