Computex 2021: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti flagship GPU with ‘reduced’ Ethereum hash rate announced

Nvidia says it will be available “worldwide” from June 3.

At Computex 2021, Nvidia has announced an all-new flagship desktop GPU, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, that’s a lot like its top-of-the-line RTX 3090—The Big Ferocious GPU—but $300 cheaper. Basically, it’s an RTX 3090 trapped inside the body of an RTX 3080 which is always good news but there will obviously be a lot of questions around the thermals on this thing with all the extra power minus top-of-the-line cooling, something that pro gamers will be keeping a close eye out for as and when the RTX 3080 Ti starts shipping (Nvidia says it will be available “worldwide” from June 3 but your mileage may vary).

Like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070, Nvidia is making the RTX 3080 Ti also “less desirable” for cryptocurrency mining by reducing the hash rate. It has a separate batch of Cryptocurrency Mining Processors or CMPs tailor-made for the purpose so miners won’t go out piling on its RTX cards at a time of global semiconductor shortage–something that Nvidia says will continue throughout 2021. Those GPUs are likewise less than ideal for gaming.

Computex 2021: AMD’s latest Radeon RX 6000M series laptop GPUs have the RDNA 2 ‘advantage’

Nvidia claims the RTX 3080 Ti, which is based on its Ampere graphics processing unit architecture, can run 4K games up to 1.5X faster than the last-gen RTX 2080 Ti. Hardware design and port selection (Nvidia’s new 12-pin connector) are in line with the RTX 3080, but the RTX 2080 Ti gets a jump in power (350 watts) and virtual memory (12GB of GDDR6X). Elsewhere, we’re looking at 10,240 CUDA cores running at a base frequency of 1.37GHz with boost speed of up to 1.67GHz.

Nvidia has also announced a relatively more mass market RTX 3070 Ti alongside the RTX 3080 Ti that will start at $599 (Rs 62,000 in India) and start shipping from June 10. Nvidia says it is up to 1.5X faster than the last-gen RTX 2070 Super with 6,144 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6X memory, and a power rating of 220W. The RTX 3070 Ti will also include Nvidia’s cryptocurrency nerf with half the hash rate for Ethereum mining.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 GPUs with Gen 2 real-time ray tracing launched; price in India starts at Rs 51,000

Both the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti will support popular and high-end Nvidia staples including Gen 2 real-time ray tracing, Deep Learning Super Sampling or DLSS, and Reflex technologies.

In other news, rival AMD has announced its long-awaited Radeon RX 6000M series “mobile” GPUs similarly at Computex 2021 and also taken the wraps off FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), its answer to Nvidia’s DLSS. While the Radeon RX 6000M series mobile graphics cards will be available from June 1, FSR will officially launch on June 22.