Is Nvidia really going to add to its line of top GPUs? All signs point to yes, and now, we have an official Nvidia keynote on the horizon to tell us when we can hear more about the rumored RTX 40 Super. Nvidia revealed that it is going to give a special address on January 8 as part of CES 2024. Although the company hasn’t confirmed what it plans to cover, the rumor mill is full of information about the three new desktop GPUs. But would they really be worth the upgrade?
Several reputable leakers have weighed in on the case for an RTX 40-series refresh, and we’ve been getting updates on the range for the past few weeks. There’s no need for Nvidia to specifically state that it will be talking about these graphics cards, as that’s what will be expected anyway. The three GPUs in question are the RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4070 Super.
During its previous keynote at CES 2023, Nvidia talked about the RTX 40 laptop range, but also unveiled the RTX 4070 Ti – previously known as the RTX 4080 12GB. This year, as shared by VideoCardz, it’s likely we’ll hear about all three new desktop GPUs, but some updates regarding AI are also possible. Although Nvidia may announce all three graphics cards at once, we do not know whether all three will hit the market together or not. However, leaks point to the first quarter of the year for all three.
Initially, it looked like Nvidia might deliver a big upgrade with the RTX 40-series refresh. Sources claimed that Nvidia could shake things up by upgrading the RTX 4080 Super to an AD102 GPU (which is the flagship chip found in the RTX 4090). The RTX 4070 Super is said to be upgraded to the AD103 chip, which is currently used by the RTX 4080. These changes will unlock more cores, increase VRAM, and have a larger memory bus for both cards.
However, it is best not to rely too much on these assumptions. Other leaks suggest that the RTX 40 refresh will be a minor upgrade, with all cards tied to their respective chips and maxing out the remaining core count. Some rumors peg the RTX 4080 Super as having 10,240 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. The RTX 4070 Ti Super is said to have 8,448 CUDA cores and 16GB of VRAM, while the RTX 4070 Super may have 7,168 cores and 12GB of VRAM.
These features represent an increase over non-Super cards, but not huge ones. The RTX 4070 Ti Super (as a side note, that name is always going to be a mouth-watering one) will see the biggest boost due to the jump from 12GB to 16GB of VRAM, while the core count boosts are mostly minor.
Regardless of the specifications, the RTX 40 Super lineup could serve an important purpose – it would help bring down the prices of some GPUs. Nvidia’s price is going up worryingly, which doesn’t bode well for the next generation of GPUs. If we could see a price drop on the existing RTX 4070, RTX 4070 Ti, and RTX 4080 due to the refresh, that alone would be a good thing.
We’ll be covering CES 2024 live, so stay tuned to make sure you don’t miss Nvidia’s announcement.
