MSI Registers Potential RTX 3090, Other Ampere Graphics Cards

As PC Gamer reported, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) published a very interesting entry today. Apparently, MSI has registered 29 different Nvidia graphics cards based off the next-gen Ampere architecture with the regulatory body. These could be MSI's take on the GeForce RTX 3090, 3080 and RTX 3070, respectively.

Instead of publicly exposing the model names for the graphics cards, MSI cunningly filed their part numbers. It's a good tactic, since hardware sleuths are constantly on the lookout for new model name listings, but almost no one pays attention to the part numbers. 

Fortunately, we do have MSI's current Turing-powered offerings as reference; however, we don't for sure if MSI will maintain the same formula for its Ampere cards. 

The part numbers on the EEC don't really tell us much about the specifications, so we still have to to get all the juicy details. Hopefully, that'll come on September 1, when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang plans on making a GeForce announcement. 

For the current GeForce RTX-20 series, MSI utilizes the V371, V372 and V373 prefixes for the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080 and RTX 2070, respectively. MSI generally uses smaller numbers to denote higher-specced models. 

We've applied the same pattern for MSI's alleged Ampere products in the table below: 

The 29 different part numbers from the EEC listing can be separated into three groups: V388, V389 and V390. According to MSI's nomenclature for Turing, the V388 should be the GeForce RTX 3090, while the V389 and V390 likely correspond to the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070, respectively.

As a result, the EEC submission seemingly points to 14 GeForce RTX 3090s, 11 GeForce RTX 3080s and four GeForce RTx 3070s. It is important to note that not every EEC-registered product makes it to market. Brands often register an abundance of part numbers or product names just to get dibs on other competitors. The companies will use some of them, while others remain inactive forever.

As mentioned, Nvidia has a big GeForce-related online event scheduled for September 1.  If you believe in coincidences, Nvidia announced the GeForce 256 graphics card on August 31, 1999. So this year marks the 21 year anniversary of the "the world's first GPU" as Nvidia marketed it. There's simply no better time or a bigger stage to announce Ampere.

At this point, it's pretty much anybody's guess which models will star in Nvidia's Ampere show. The GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 are strong candidates; although, we wouldn't be surprised if the RTX 3070 also gets in on the fun.