Nvidia Hosting GeForce Announcement on Sept 1, Likely Ampere, RTX 3080

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia will host an online GeForce-focused event on September 1, the company announced today. CEO Jensen Huang will lead the broadcast at 9 a.m. Pacific / 12 p.m. ET. The company says it will "highlight the company’s latest innovations in gaming and graphics," so it's likely to focus on consumer-facing Ampere GPUs, likely the RTX 3000 series.

Yesterday, Nvidia announced a 21-day "ultimate countdown," leading many, including us, to believe that an event would take place on August 31, which would be 21 years exactly from the launch of the Nvidia GeForce 256.

But a clock on a new event page (opens in new tab) also matches the September 1 date. It includes the ability to add the event to your calendar and a "community kit" with borders to put around your picture on social media.

We have been collecting everything we know about the RTX 3080, 3090 and other rumored Ampere cards, so you can click on that link to get the lowdown on what to expect.

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Twitter: @FreedmanAE

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7 Comments Comment from the forums

Jimbojan

Nvidia is front running Intel on Sept 1 vs Intel's Sept 2nd Tiger Lake CPU/GPU announcement. Not sure there is any advantage to do that, it is the product capability and value matters, not the propaganda influence the buying habit.
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spongiemaster

Jimbojan said:
Nvidia is front running Intel on Sept 1 vs Intel's Sept 2nd Tiger Lake CPU/GPU announcement. Not sure there is any advantage to do that, it is the product capability and value matters, not the propaganda influence the buying habit.
Based on the marketing behind it, it looks like Nvidia announcing the day before is a coincidence. They had that date in mind all along. One is announcing a mobile cpu, the other a highend desktop video. Not exactly competing products.
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Alvar "Miles" Udell

I wonder if AMD will do anything to try and spoil it? Then again, what COULD AMD do to try and spoil it? We know RDNA2 cards aren't inbound until December, and Navi Refresh isn't going to be anything to write home about...
Reply
cryoburner

Alvar Miles Udell said:
We know RDNA2 cards aren't inbound until December, and Navi Refresh isn't going to be anything to write home about...
Who ever said RDNA2 cards were not coming until December? AMD's Chief Financial Officer said a couple months back that "Big Navi" cards using RDNA2 would be out before the next-gen consoles launch, and at least the Series X has been confirmed for a November release. AMD's new cards will likely be announced not too long after Nvidia makes their announcement. Perhaps they want to see how Nvidia prices their cards first, so that they don't need to make last-minute adjustments as they did with the 5000 series.

As for Navi refresh cards, it really depends on how they are priced. I would not expect a refreshed 5700 XT to be anywhere close to $400, as that would most likely not compete with whatever Nvidia puts out in that price range. A sub-$300 price point would be more likely, with RDNA2 cards taking over at those higher levels.
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Alvar "Miles" Udell

cryoburner said:
Who ever said RDNA2 cards were not coming until December? AMD's Chief Financial Officer said a couple months back that "Big Navi" cards using RDNA2 would be out before the next-gen consoles launch, and at least the Series X has been confirmed for a November release. AMD's new cards will likely be announced not too long after Nvidia makes their announcement. Perhaps they want to see how Nvidia prices their cards first, so that they don't need to make last-minute adjustments as they did with the 5000 series.

As for Navi refresh cards, it really depends on how they are priced. I would not expect a refreshed 5700 XT to be anywhere close to $400, as that would most likely not compete with whatever Nvidia puts out in that price range. A sub-$300 price point would be more likely, with RDNA2 cards taking over at those higher levels.

Which source says "retail availity in November 2020"? Everything I've seen says "launch", which could just mean a paper launch with retail availability in 2021, and given AMD's recent past history with "launching" with only a few hundred cards worldwide, I wouldn't expect anything until 2021. Also rumors suggest that the AIBs do not even have the GPUs in their labs yet, so only reference cards will be available in 2020. Although AMD claims to be abandoning the blower coolers on reference editions starting with RDNA2, I'm not sure how much stock I put in that statement, and the performance of dual/triple fan stock coolers will be questionable since even custom AIB versions of Navi cards, especially the lower end ones, have really horrid coolers Cough XFX Cough.
Reply
cryoburner

Alvar Miles Udell said:
Which source says "retail availity in November 2020"? Everything I've seen says "launch", which could just mean a paper launch with retail availability in 2021, and given AMD's recent past history with "launching" with only a few hundred cards worldwide, I wouldn't expect anything until 2021. Also rumors suggest that the AIBs do not even have the GPUs in their labs yet, so only reference cards will be available in 2020. Although AMD claims to be abandoning the blower coolers on reference editions starting with RDNA2, I'm not sure how much stock I put in that statement, and the performance of dual/triple fan stock coolers will be questionable since even custom AIB versions of Navi cards, especially the lower end ones, have really horrid coolers Cough XFX Cough.
We can't say for absolute certain that RDNA2 cards will be available in October or November, but you also can't claim that "we know" they won't be out until December. There's no detailed information about their release schedule publicly available yet, aside from suggestions that imply high-end RDNA2 cards should be available sometime in the fourth quarter.

As for board partners not having access to RDNA2 GPUs yet, that wouldn't be surprising. It was some months before we saw alternate designs for the 5700 and 5700 XT, and they could potentially follow a similar release schedule here. That might not be a problem if the reference designs offer better cooling capability though, and it was confirmed back in March that AMD would be getting rid of the blower-style cooler this generation. It's likely that they have decided to be more competitive with their reference cooler design, and specifically stated that lukewarm response to the coolers on the initial Navi cards was the reason for changing things up.
Reply
Avro Arrow

Alvar Miles Udell said:
I wonder if AMD will do anything to try and spoil it? Then again, what COULD AMD do to try and spoil it? We know RDNA2 cards aren't inbound until December, and Navi Refresh isn't going to be anything to write home about...
AMD doesn't need to spoil anything. Doesn't having to stare at Dear Leader's fat face spoil it enough? :LOL::ROFLMAO:🤢
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