We know that new Nvidia RTX 3000 series cards are on the way, and the company is set to show us what it’s been working on in just over a week. But would-be RTX 3090 buyers with microATX cases might want to look away now.
Twitter user @GarnetSunset shared images purporting to be of the upcoming RTX 3090, alongside a RTX 2080 for scale. And if it’s even half accurate, you’re going to need a bigger case.
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If the $2,000 price tag noted in that tweet gave you or your bank balance a heart attack, you’ll be pleased to hear that @GarnetSunset offered a correction a few minutes later. The card – which he describes as being “the titan of this gen” – will ‘only’ set you back $1,400.
3 slots. 2000$. pic.twitter.com/ZgKsPUQ1U4August 21, 2020
While @GarnetSunset doesn’t provide any measurements, other users have done a bit of detective work and calculate that, assuming a 120mm fan, the card should be around 300mm to the RTX 2080 GPU’s 267mm.
But not only is it set to be long, but it’s also going to be wide. The RTX 3090 should be a triple-slot card with a fairly chunky looking fan and heatsink on each side. There seems to be something written on the backplate that has been digitally edited out – maybe branding, or perhaps just something to make the source of the leak harder to trace.
Speaking of the source, can the picture be trusted? Well, @GarnetSunset makes no secret of the fact that the image comes via 4chan which has a fairly mixed track record, and it’s not overly encouraging to see the word “sh*tposting” show up in his bio either.
But while people have been keen to point out that the PCI-e inserts are different sizes on the two cards, there’s a fairly simple explanation to this: the RTX 3090 is closer to the camera, on account of being thicker. Or as @GarnetSunset more expressively puts it:
It's literally not bigger the card is closer to the camera can you conspiracy theorists calm down JesusAugust 22, 2020
Others have questioned the shadows and light sourcing, so by all means take it with a pinch of salt. But given what we know about the upcoming RTX 3000-series cards, it would be pretty surprising if they weren’t on the large side. The RTX 3090, remember, is set to be ridiculously powerful with a massive 20GB of VRAM but even the 3080 is going to be no slouch with 10GB.
One thing that they won’t be is cheap, eclipsing the current top-of-the-range GeForce RTX 2080 Ti’s $1,000 price tag by some margin. We should know all the details come September 1.
