Thought the latest generation of graphics cards had reached some sort of peak? Think again..
Generally speaking, AMD and NVIDIA have always managed to update their graphics card lines at a steady pace. Almost two years ago, the two companies released their latest lines: on the one hand, we could count on the GeForce RTX 3000 series based on Ampere architecture and on the other hand on the Radeon RX 6000 series in RDNA 2 architecture. Between the Covid-19 pandemic, boosted demand, unscrupulous crypto miners and big logistical problems, this generation will have had many setbacks.
The next generation may have a very different set of problems... problems based on power consumption. There is nothing new under the sun, each new architecture is the occasion of profound upheavals: the performances progress more or less clearly and the energy efficiency is generally improved. However, this is not enough to reduce the overall power consumption of graphics cards and, generation after generation, the hardware requirements are always more important.
While NVIDIA is expected to introduce its Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 4000 series in September/October, most rumors point to a TGP (to put it simply, a thermal envelope) of 600 Watts for the top-of-the-line model, which is expected to be called GeForce RTX 4090. Now, however, the always well-informed Kopite7kimi has indicated that an even more muscular model could be released later, perhaps a GeForce RTX 4090 Ti, which would not be surprising.
In fact, there is another full-fat AD102 SKU with 900W TGP, 48G 24Gbps GDDR6X, 2*16pin and higher frequency.
But no one knows whether it will become an actual product. Because the test board of AD102 has more than two 16pin connectors, so everything is possible.- kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) April 27, 2022
Kopite7kimi is more frightening when he talks about the possible specificities of the beast. It is said to have a maximum TGP of 900 Watts, while the prototype card would have two 16-pin power connectors to provide the necessary juice. Kopite7kimi adds that NVIDIA would have integrated 48 GB of GDDR6X memory at 24 Gbps to perfect the monster. The next generation of graphics cards will be powerful without a doubt... it remains to be seen if the world's electrical production will follow :-)
