Rumor mill: The launch of Nvidia's RTX 50-series graphics cards is still a long way away, but multiple leaks have already revealed some key details. A new X post from a reputable tipster now suggests that the upcoming cards could be substantially more powerful than their predecessors.
According to @XpeaGPU (via Hardware Times), it's too early to definitively answer questions about how Nvidia's next-gen graphics cards will perform, but as far as he could tell, the performance of the GB203 GPU powering the RTX 5080 will be faster than the RTX 4090's AD102 in ray tracing. In terms of rasterization, the tipster believes that the two GPUs could perform similarly.
In another post, the same tipster further claimed that the top Blackwell gaming dies could offer the biggest single-generation performance uplift in the company's history. According to the post, Nvidia designed its next-gen GPUs to fight a "monster 3nm MCM RDNA 4 flagship," and that will reflect in how well they match up to the competition.
People is confused about Nvidia Blackwell top die gaming GPU memory bus and VRAM capacity. I can't say too much right now but gen-to-gen performance uplift is the biggest ever. Don't forget that Blackwell was designed to compete with a monster 3nm MCM RDN4. More to come soon...
– AGF (@XpeaGPU) March 13, 2024
However, the "monster MCM GPU", a.k.a. the Radeon RX 8900 XTX, was eventually canceled by AMD, so it remains to be seen how well the next-gen RDNA 5 cards will hold up against Nvidia's onslaught.
The tipster also "confirmed" that Nvidia plans to use GDDR7 memory for the top 3 Blackwell dies, suggesting that the high-end RTX 5000-series cards will come with the latest VRAM technology.
GDDR7 for the top 3 Blackwell gaming dies confirmed pic.twitter.com/p8y8DUhNye
– AGF (@XpeaGPU) March 15, 2024
Meanwhile, earlier rumors surrounding the Blackwell GPUs suggest that the flagship GB202 powering the RTX 5090 could have twice as many cores as the cut-down GB203 that will underpin the RTX 5080. However, there's no word on whether the GB202 will use a multi-chip package.
The GB202 die is also tipped to feature a 512-bit memory interface compared to the 384-bit interface found on the flagship AD102 Ada GPU. Finally, the top-end Blackwell gaming cards are expected to ship with 28Gbps GDDR7 memory, which will be substantially faster than the 18Gbps bandwidth offered by GDDR6 and up to 21Gbps offered by GDDR6X.
Do note the aforementioned rumors are yet to be verified by other sources, so they need to be taken with a pinch of salt for now. In any case, the Blackwell GPUs are only expected to debut in late 2024 or early 2025, so a lot can still change between now and then.