NVIDIA's soon-to-be-released GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and the entire existing GeForce RTX 30 lineup will soon be getting revised Ampere GPUs to tackle cryptocurrency mining. The new GPUs will be featured on all upcoming graphics cards under the GeForce RTX 30 family while the ones that are already released and sold to users would remain unaffected.
NVIDIA's Entire GeForce RTX 30 Lineup Including The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti To Get Revised Ampere GPUs To Tackle Cryptocurrency Mining
While we had already got a hint of this happening a few weeks back, Igor's Lab has dug up some more information with the help of their sources at graphics card manufacturers. According to the source, the initial batch of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card based on the GA102-225-A1 GPU core was still not fully protected against cryptocurrency mining. The GPU in its current QS state is still able to produce full hash rate performance in mining algorithms with the existing 470.05 BETA driver.
To tackle this, NVIDIA has now submitted a newer Ampere GPU which should be known as GA102-22*-A1, & will be mass-produced for the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card instead of the GA102-225-A1 SKU. The new GPU is already in mass production and won't work with any existing drivers. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti isn't the only GPU that will be getting a revised Ampere SKUs, in fact, the entire lineup will be getting newer chips as listed below (Rumor):
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 - GA102-300-A1 -> GA102-302-A1
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 - GA102-200-A1 -> GA102-202-A1
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 - GA104-300-A1 -> GA104-302-A1
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti - GA104-200-A1 -> GA104-202-A1
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 - GA106-300-A1 -> GA106-302-A1
The source reports that it is possible to flash the old GPU firmware on the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card but that doesn't come without its own set of issues. NVIDIA has devised a way that if users flash the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card with the older BIOS firmware, that would result in a black screen and vice versa.
I've said before, maybe not GA106 only.
For example, we would meet GA102-302/202 and GA104-302/202. https://t.co/pGghHbikbV— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) April 15, 2021
The reason for this is because the new Ampere GPUs come with a different hardware ID. This means that there's another parameter aside from the GPU-driver hand-shake that is preventing the BIOS firmware upgrade from working on the newer cards & that may totally limit full-hash rate performance for cryptocurrency mining algorithms. This approach won't affect the drivers since the device ID remains the same and NVIDIA won't have to prepare a new set of drivers for its new hash rate restricted Ampere GeForce RTX 30 lineup but it looks like that this solution will be somewhat complicated for miners to bypass.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB 'Rumored' Graphics Card Specifications
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB FE (Founders Edition) graphics card is expected to feature the PG132-SKU18 PCB design and the GA102-225-KD-A1 graphics core. The GA102-225 GPU has also changed since the last time we saw them and will now feature 10240 CUDA cores within a total of 80 SM units. Since the main core configuration is entirely brand new, the previously leaked clocks & TMU/ROP counts should now be dismissed.
As for memory, the card will feature 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. Unlike the 19.5 Gbps speeds of the RTX 3090, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is said to retain the same memory speeds as the RTX 3080 at 19 Gbps. Since we are getting 12 GB memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will be using a 384-bit bus interface which equals a total bandwidth of 912 GB/s. So while we see an 8 GB VRAM reduction over the previous spec, the larger bus interface should drive higher memory bandwidth.
The TGP for the card is set to be the same as the RTX 3080 at 320 Watts. That's definitely needed to feed the extra cores so NVIDIA might have to optimize the clocks a bit here. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is expected to launch in mid-April for an MSRP of around $999 US. The card is rumored to launch in May.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti? | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti? | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA107 | Ampere GA106? | Ampere GA106-300 | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA104-400 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-225? | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | TBA | TBA | TBA | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 |
| Transistors | TBA | TBA | TBA | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 2304? | 3584? | 3584 | 4864 | 5888 | 6144? | 8704 | 10240? | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | TBA | TBA | 112 / 64 | 152 / 80 | 184 / 96 | 192/ 104? | 272 / 96 | 320 / 112? | 328 / 112 |
| Tensor / RT Cores | TBA | TBA | 112 / 28 | 152 / 38 | 184 / 46 | 192/ 48? | 272 / 68 | 320 / 76? | 328 / 82 |
| Base Clock | TBA | TBA | 1320 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | TBA | 1440 MHz | TBA | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | 1780 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | TBA | 1710 MHz | TBA | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | TBA | TBA | 12.7 TFLOPs | 16.2 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | TBA | 30 TFLOPs | TBA | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | 25.4 TFLOPs | 32.4 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | TBA | 58 TFLOPs | TBA | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | TBA | TBA | 101 TOPs | 129.6 TOPs | 163 TOPs | TBA | 238 TOPs | TBA | 285 TOPs |
| Memory Capacity | 4 GB GDDR6? | 6 GB GDDR6? | 12 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8-16 GB GDDR6X? | 10 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 192-bit? | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Speed | TBA | TBA | 15 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | TBA | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | TBA | TBA | 360 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | TBA | 760 Gbps | 912 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | 90W? | TBA | 170W | 200W | 220W | 250W? | 320W | 320W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $149? | $199? | $329 | $399 US | $499 US | $599 US? | $699 US | $999 US? | $1499 US |
| Launch (Availability) | 2021? | 2021? | February 2021 | December 2020 | 29th October | May 2021? | 17th September | April 2021? | 24th September |
Only a new driver which would lock cryptocurrency mining and enforce the hash rate limit once again will be available for the revised GeForce RTX 30 series cards and that NVIDIA will be keeping a close eye on its driver releases this time around. We will certainly see how well that goes compared to their first try which to be very honest, failed spectacularly.
The post NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti & Rest of The GeForce RTX 30 Lineup To Get Revised Ampere GPUs To Tackle Cryptocurrency Mining by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.
source https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-ti-geforce-rtx-30-lineup-revised-ampere-gpus-tackle-cryptocurrency-mining/