What We Know About The GTX 2080 (And Why It May Not Matter)

We have seen a whole lot of speculation (and a fair bit of desperation) surrounding Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards—and for a few good reasons.The company’s existing 10-series “Pascal” architecture is pushing two years on the gaming market, and AMD seems unable, at least at the moment, to muscle the performance goalposts forward on the graphics high end, with its Radeon Vega 64 comparable with the GeForce GTX 1080, but not the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. So there's not a lot of competitive impetus to push next-gen cards on the market, when the current gen is doing just fine.

Plus, of course, there is no lack of demand. Thanks to the seemingly bottomless bank accounts of coin miners, it’s been nearly impossible to pick up any performance-focused graphics card for well over six months, without paying hundreds more than the MSRP. Case in point: the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. It debuted just over a year ago at $699—and it was selling on Newegg as we wrote this for a starting in-stock price of $1,079.

All that said, those hoping that Nvidia’s next-gen cards are going to fix the current problems plaguing the enthusiast gaming space may be setting themselves up for disappointment. Let’s take a look at what we know (or what we think we know) about Nvidia’s ostensible GeForce GTX 2080 and GTX 2070 right now. Spoiler alert: it ain’t much. For starters, they may not even be called "GTX 2080" or "GTX 2070."

What We Know (and Don't Know) About Nvidia's Next Consumer Cards

Yep, we’re not even sure on that naming convention. Speculation about a so-called GTX 2080 and 2070 seems to initially have come from TweakTown, which in the same story speculated Nvidia could launch new cards at its GPU Technology Conference (GTC), which is coming up next week in San Jose. We’ll have personnel at the event, in case that happens. But a launch of a card that soon seems extremely unlikely at this point. In fact, our own sources tell us not to expect next-gen high-end Nvidia cards until the July timeframe, which puts a hard launch even at Computex 2018 out of the picture, as well.

That said, while we will likely have to wait a bit longer than many gamers would want, our sources also indicate that the next-gen top-end Nvidia consumer cards will skip Nvidia's Volta architecture. Volta found its way into the $3,000 Nvidia Titan V, but it otherwise has been absent in the consumer gaming space; the next-gen cards should jump straight to an architecture called “Turing” that we know almost nothing about. Hopefully that means, at the very least, that we’ll see more of a performance boost than we’d normally expect from one generation of cards to the next.

Regardless of what a potential GTX 2080 hides under its cooling apparatus, though, it may not matter much on a practical level for the vast majority of gamers. Given the existing price of GTX 1080 Ti cards, TweakTown is speculating that Nvidia’s next-gen card could be priced as high as $1,499. Again, we don’t know. But given the seemingly unyielding demand for high-end cards in the $1,000-plus price range, even if Nvidia doesn’t price its new cards obscenely high, they’re almost certainly going to sell for hundreds above the MSRP, anyway.

Our only hope for relief on that front (apart from a cryptocurrency-market meltdown) may be that new cards with more mining muscle might shift the focus away from existing Pascal-based chips (as well as AMD’s Vega offerings) and bring some high-end gaming cards back down into the realm of reasonable affordability.

How the Market Might Improve

There may soon be some relief to gamers’ coin-mining woes from elsewhere, as well. As we recently reported, profits seem to be stretching thin for Ethereum miners, and some (admittedly small) cities in the United States are banning coin mining in various ways. Wenatchee, Wash., which as of 2013 had the cheapest electricity in the country (thanks to dams on the Columbia River), banned at-home Bitcoin mining for a year in February. And across the country in New York State, Plattsburgh recently voted for an 18-month moratorium on commercial cryptomining, in an attempt to manage its own hydroelectric resources. In other words, some municipalities seem to be wising up to the fact that coin miners are flocking to areas to exploit cheap power.

If these trends continue, gamers looking for new high-end cards could see some price relief in the next few months. If this unwinds fast enough that millions of existing graphics cards get dumped onto eBay and Craigslist, that could keep the price of next-generation cards reasonable, as well. It’s a tenuous hope. But hey, in a world where RAM prices are triple what they were not long ago, graphics cards are selling at double their launch pricing, and even power supply prices are going up, it sometimes feels like hope—and credit card debt—are all that PC gamers and builders have these days.

What do you think? What would you like to see in Nvidia's next-generation graphics cards? Chime in with your take in the comments below.

Matt Safford

After a rough start with the Mattel Aquarius as a child, Matt built his first PC in the late 1990s and ventured into mild PC modding in the early 2000s. He’s spent the last 15 years covering emerging technology for Smithsonian, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports, while testing components and PCs for Computer Shopper, PCMag and Digital Trends.

  • Sam Hain
    I'm staying put with my 1080 Ti, regardless of the price-point of the next-gen... I'm (very) good right now at 1440p, even considering I'm still on a Z97/4790K.
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    @Sam Hain
    Your 4790K and 1080 Ti will both be relevant for years to come. There's no reason why the next generation Nvidia cards should force you to upgrade.
    Reply
  • dark_lord69
    "when the current gen is doing just fine."
    Meh, I'm NOT happy with current hardware.

    Why?
    Virtual Reality

    I want 4k per eye capability at an affordable price.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Calling the hypothetical next cards GTX 20xx is dumb. Nvidia's current naming convention would make the next generation the GTX 11xx series.
    Reply
  • rubix_1011
    20818298 said:
    Calling the hypothetical next cards GTX 20xx is dumb. Nvidia's current naming convention would make the next generation the GTX 11xx series.

    Logically, you are correct. But in reality, the best way to make the entire market aware of your new product is to change the overall name to be much different than what you currently have to offer.
    Reply
  • bgunner
    Question: We know why the price of GPU's have gone to the point obscene, coin mining and the lack of available stock to keep prices at a normal price ( minus the fact that GPU company's are making fortune and seem unwilling to do something about the price ). We know why the price of memory has skyrocketed, manufacturing issues that wiped out many of the modules that were made, these are both supply and demand issues, So Why are PSU prices now rising?
    I am not in the market for a new PSU since mine is still fairly new and more than powerful enough to handle most GPU's in a Crossfire/SLI configuration but I am curious as to why. We know there is always some fluctuation in pricing, this is standard retail issues, so why does it seem like half of the component prices in a new build are raising or completely out of reach for some? (this next part is just speculation but many will understand why I'm making this observation and posing the question) Is there some sort of money grab plot going on in the industry causing some of the issues we are seeing especially with GPU's?
    Reply
  • Giroro
    20818341 said:
    20818298 said:
    Calling the hypothetical next cards GTX 20xx is dumb. Nvidia's current naming convention would make the next generation the GTX 11xx series.

    Logically, you are correct. But in reality, the best way to make the entire market aware of your new product is to change the overall name to be much different than what you currently have to offer.

    Sure, giving new product lines unique names can help with marketing. And in my opinion naming the current gen 10xx in the first place was probably a mistake as it implied some of their highest-end cards were designed for gaming at 1080p.
    Regardless, Nvidia isn't out there marketing their new 2080 cards, that is just a name people have come up with to describe the next iteration of a current product line, so all you have to go on is what their were previously called. When Nvidia decides to break that convention entirely, it will probably be a much bigger change than "let's increase the number by a higher number than usual this year". If Nvidia decides to call their next cards 20xx, then they better actually do something big enough to make the next cards "1000 better" than the 10xx series.

    What I think will actually end up happening, is Nvidia's next cards will just be a rename of their current cards with a slight overclock a significant price increase. The branding will probably emphasize either 4k or VR. Something like GTX 4k80 or GVR 1080 X. Either way, I wouldn't expect a proper next-gen card out of Nvidia until either the mining bubble pops or AMD puts out something more powerful than a 1080ti.
    Reply
  • AlphaCompton
    That's pretty good Justin, I was just thinking the same thing. I have a 980 GTX and was hoping to upgrade to a 1080 since I got a promotion in January but now with the crazy prices for GPU's I actually bought a PS4 Pro and am using my old PS4 in another room.
    This just sounds like a crazy Removed headache. I feel like PC gaming lost horribly, I'm a big technology enthusiast and I feel really hurt that I can't continue tell people to build a good gaming pc right now. We always talk about how PC gaming is the best but right now it's absolutely unreasonable in pricing because of the most important component for gaming.
    Here's hoping a new Titan comes out and the asshate miners just buy that instead and leave the 1180, 2080 or whatever for us.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    20818480 said:
    So Why are PSU prices now rising?

    I am not in the market for a new PSU since mine is still fairly new and more than powerful enough to handle most GPU's in a Crossfire/SLI configuration but I am curious as to why. We know there is always some fluctuation in pricing, this is standard retail issues, so why does it seem like half of the component prices in a new build are raising or completely out of reach for some? (this next part is just speculation but many will understand why I'm making this observation and posing the question) Is there some sort of money grab plot going on in the industry causing some of the issues we are seeing especially with GPU's?
    The same people buying up GPUs for mining are also buying a ton of medium to high capacity PSUs to power their rigs. Doesn't seem to be much of a mystery to me.
    Reply
  • Sonickrunch
    Personally I think there is a lot of demand coming for proper 60fps 4k capability. Even a 1080ti can't put out 60fps at 4k at ultra settings in todays games, so personally I think there is a good new demand for the GPU segment to move forward. Now of course if you already have a 1080ti and it was a big purchase for you, I'm sure you can stick with it for quite some time but there's demand rising.
    Reply