The power demands of the GeForce RTX 40 Series may not be as worrisome as earlier rumors had indicated.
Leaker kopite7kimi resurfaced today with updated claims that suggest NVIDIA has dialed down the power demands of two of its upcoming graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 4080 and GeForce RTX 4070. Supposedly, the GeForce RTX 4080 will now release with only a 320-watt TBP, while its weaker sibling will debut with a 285-watt TBP.
Earlier rumors had pegged the GeForce RTX 4080 to draw as much as 450 watts, but the new figure, if true, would put it directly in line with the GeForce RTX 3080 (10 GB) in the power department. NVIDIA has listed the 10 GB and 12 GB models of the GeForce RTX 3080 with a 320-watt and 350-watt TBP, respectively.
A chart shared by Tom’s Hardware that illustrates the previous estimates has indicated a pretty steep power drop of nearly 30% for the GeForce RTX 4080.
GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Power Consumption Changes
| Model | Current Power Estimate | Previous Power Estimate | Percentage Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 4080 | 320W | 450W | 29% |
| RTX 4070 | 285W | 300W | 5% |
NVIDIA’s alleged changes seem to be good news for prospective GeForce RTX 40 Series owners who don’t need any more space heaters, but as Tom’s Hardware pointed out in its coverage, this might mean lower performance.
On one side, the lower wattage will reduce the TBP of the top-tier GPUs by a considerable amount, making them much easier to cool and thereby reducing system heat and noise levels as well.
On the other side, a 29% reduction in power use on the RTX 4080 could substantially reduce GPU performance. That’s the problem with early rumors and leaks. Nvidia is also working to determine the best clock speeds, voltages, and power levels for its new Ada architecture, so everything is still in a state of flux.
Another pretty established leaker, Elysian Ream (@KittyYYuko, formerly KittyCorgi), shared a tweet today that suggested NVIDIA is also planning a new GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card with 20 GB of memory. This is expected to “fit in between RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 specs by offering 14848 CUDA cores and 20GB of GDDR6X memory,” as noted in coverage by VideoCardz.
Source: kopite7kimi
Discussion (4 replies)
Join Discussion →Figured this would happen.
This is why I mostly disregard early rumors.
Still wouldn't be surprised if a very high end model (3090/3090ti/Titan equivalent) winds up having a larger power envelope than we are used to, but it certainly won't be the more mainstream models.
So ~300W instead of >500W - and if they can scale with power, well, good news!
A third of the time, I figure it's just over-eager web sites looking for cheap clicks - because everyone hopes a legit scoop is out there, and rumors make for easy click bait. I wouldn't put it above some from just making stuff up, but mostly I think it's people thinking they saw something, or misinterpreting what they may have seen or heard, or just plain wishing out loud and people talking it as some sort of factual release note.
Another third of the time, I figure you do have some legitimate "leaker", but they are going off pre-release engineering samples at best, or just design notes from god-knows-what stage of the design process at worst.
And that final third of the time, I think it's the company itself intentionally leaking information, but doing so on the downlow so they don't have to admit it if they decide to backtrack or if there is blowback. That isn't the same thing as saying that it's legit info - I think they would leak knowingly false information for any number of reasons: to tamp down expectations of their own product, to guage customer interest or disapproval, to attempt to deflect or draw attention away from the competition, etc.
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I should also clarify, that isn't a perfect 33.3% split between those three options, just I seem to always think the rumors fall into one of those buckets. I couldn't tell you what the ratio is, but I suspect the first and the last a lot more than the middle one. For the particular rumor of nVidia significantly bumping the TDP caps - I strongly suspect it was a trial balloon floated by nVidia to see if people would utterly freak out or just accept it.
If they pull no more power than my 3090 Ti then I may consider looking at a 4000 series card. So we'll see upon release I guess.