Nvidia’s RTX 40 series cards will be launching this year, and we’ve got the lowdown on everything that you need to know about the entire stack right here, including price, specs, and more.
It’s been almost two years since the launch of Nvidia’s Ampere line of graphics cards, and it’s high time that they refresh the lineup with a brand-new generation of cards, that looks to shake up the GPU market. The cards look to break through the current performance barriers and offer up significantly faster graphics cards.
Codenamed Ada Lovelace, these GPUs will be based on TSMC’s 5nm process, moving away from the Samsung 8nm process that we saw previously in their Ampere lineup of graphics cards. Nvidia previously secured $10B USD worth of 5nm wafers to avoid a shortage of cards upon launch.
Each graphics card in the RTX 40 series is based on various “AD” chips. AD102 is the most powerful and will most likely feature in the RTX 4090, the AD103 will be likely to feature the RTX 4080, with AD104 in the RTX 4070. From there, we have fewer details, but it’s a good bet that the RTX 4060 will be based on AD106.
RTX 40 series rumored specifications
| GPU | CUDA Cores | Bus width | VRAM | Memory Speed | Memory Bandwidth | L2 Cache | Total Board Power | Time Spy Extreme Benchmarks | |
| RTX 4090 Ti | AD102-450-A1 | 18,176 FP32 | 384-bit | 48GB GDDR6X | 24Gbps | 1,152GB/s | 96MB | 800W | N/A |
| RTX 4090 | AD102-300-A1 | 16,384 FP32 | 384-bit | 24GB GDDR6X | 21Gbps | 1,008GB/s | 72MB | 450W | 19,000 |
| RTX 4080 | AD103-300-A1 | 9,728 FP32 | 256-bit | 16GB GDDR6X | 21GBps | 672GB/s | 48MB | 320w | 15,000 |
| RTX 4070 | AD104-300-A1 | 7,680 FP32 | 192-bit | 12GB GDDR6X | 21GBps | 504GB/s | 36MB | 285w | 11,000 |
These latest specifications come from Kopite7Kimi‘s estimations of what we can expect from the RTX 40-series as it stands currently. These are not confirmed specifications, so be sure to take them with a grain of salt.
However, they are corroborated by the earliest rumors that we’ve been hearing. It’s likely that as we march forward in the coming months, we’ll hear much more about the upcoming graphics cards.
One of our biggest concerns regarding these cards is the significant power draw that they claim to have, with the RTX 4090 topping out at a total board power of a staggering 450W. This will likely require significant thermal cooling on the design of the cards in order to dissipate the hit, as long as you have a power supply that can keep up with these demands.
Though, recently Kopite7Kimi slashed the power draw of the RTX 4080 by 100w, whether this manages to impact performance remains to be seen.
We can expect RTX 4080 with 320W and RTX 4070 with 285W.
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) August 9, 2022
Additionally, the initial Time Spy benchmarks for the cards have all come through, and they are looking incredibly quick. For an idea of what the current cards look like in comparison to the upcoming RTX 40 series GPUs, we’ve compared their Time Spy Extreme benchmarks below.
RTX 40 series rumored benchmarks
| GPU | Time Spy Extreme Score | Versus 30-series equivalent |
| RTX 4090 | 19,000 | +86.2% (RTX 3090) |
| RTX 4080 | 15,000 | +68.5% (RTX 3080) |
| RTX 4070 | 11,000 | +61.7% (RTX 3070) |
It appears like the stack will have a significant boost in performance all-round. Right now, the RTX 4070 is looking to be around as fast as the current RTX 3090 Ti, meaning that no matter what GPU you have, you will probably benefit from upgrading up to the RTX 40 series.
Though, if you are not keen on splashing the cash on a brand-new card, you should probably take a look at getting yourself a cheap GPU, as all of the prices have been significantly slashed after a cryptocurrency crash, which has saturated the used market with cheap graphics cards, which is causing a headache of an oversupply issue over at Nvidia.
Though, there are already details of an RTX 4090 Ti and 4070 Ti, which would most likely be coming a little bit after the initial launch of the RTX 40-series graphics cards.
RTX 40 series rumored release date
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series will be launching in October, according to the latest leaks from Moore’s Law is Dead. However, this is slightly later than Nivida initially planned, as at the start of the year we heard that the cards could be launching as early as July.
However, we retain that the only card that we’re likely to see released in October will be the RTX 4090. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 are likely to see a paper launch in November, according to the latest reports. This comes after reports that the cards were previously pegged for release in early 2023.
Regardless, suppliers are starting to receive their shipments of RTX 40 series graphics cards, according to a recent report, so movement is coming along nicely. Though you still might be waiting a while for the graphics card of your choosing to launch for a little bit.
RTX 40 series estimated price
The pricing of the RTX 40 series is still fairly up in the air, but we’ve got a good idea of what the cards might cost, based on previous generations, in addition to some adjustments for inflation and the cost of components rising over the last couple of years.
| GPU | Estimated MSRP |
| RTX 4090 | $1999.99 |
| RTX 4080 | $799.99 |
| RTX 4070 | $599.99 |
Right now, we believe that the RTX 4080 will cost slightly more due to its usage of a higher-end chip. When compared against other things like its previous-generation counterparts. You should expect higher prices all-round, thanks to the global economy. This is conjecture based on our estimations, so do not take them as gospel by any means.
