According to Videocardz, it appears that NVIDIA has plans to launch its GeForce RTX 3060 8 GB and RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X graphics cards in late October. Earlier this week, it was reported that NVIDIA was working on three GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards, primarily for the mainstream segment.
These cards reportedly include new models such as the RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti, designed to provide options for the mid-range market, and while Nvidia will soon launch its next-generation RTX 40 series, their lineup won’t include mainstream options until next year.
With these new GeForce RTX 30 series models, NVIDIA not only has more options in the midrange market but has also found a way to clear its existing GPU inventory. Although the pricing situation means that these will be priced well below the suggested retail price of the original cards at launch. The first two cards expected to ship next month will include the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti, and just because they are newer models, don’t expect them to have better specs (as is the case with the RTX 3060 non-Ti).
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8 GB & RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X graphics cards will reportedly launch later on October 2.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is expected to retain the GA104 GPU core, but will be upgraded to 8 GB of GDDR6X memory, while current models use the standard GDDR6 memory standard. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card will feature a neutered 8GB and 128-bit bus interface instead of the original 12GB and 192-bit design. This cut-down specification will provide 240 GB/s of bandwidth, a 33% drop compared to the standard 12 GB model. The RTX 3070 Ti is also rumored to be getting a soft refresh on the GA102 GPU to clear high-end chip inventory.
Considering Intel has the Arc GPU launching later this month and most of its flagship products are comparable to the RTX 3060 Ti, the cheaper RTX 3060 Ti could spell trouble for the A770, while the Arc A580 could be pushed into the RTX 3060 8 GB variant’s niche. Intel has updated the A580’s specs to a wider bus and more cores, but it remains to be seen if the final performance will be enough to handle Nvidia’s RTX 3060 series.
These specs aren’t final yet, but we have confirmation that NVIDIA is indeed working on new variants of these RTX 30 series cards, which we’ll see in the retail space soon. Once again, if NVIDIA wants to get rid of its inventory of GA102, GA104 and GA106 GPUs soon, these products will have to be priced very attractively as they prepare to launch mainstream GeForce RTX 40 GPUs in early 2023.
