The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti hasn’t had as many retailer slip-ups as the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (having even apparently already hit the shelves in some regions of the world) but the upcoming graphics card has recently been spotted in Razer PCs which could indicate an imminent announcement.
Excitement is certainly building around the anticipated launch of Nvidia’s beefed up version of the GeForce RTX 3070. We liked the original RTX 3070 a lot, so much so in fact that we dubbed it as ‘one of the best graphics cards of all time’ in our review, awarding it a full five stars. Can the RTX 3070 Ti live up to its predecessor’s lofty expectations?
That is, if you can even get your hands on one. Stock issues have been rife since the launch of Nvidia’s original Ampere-powered lineup due to a global shortage of silicon, a boom in cryptomining (that’s been falling in recent weeks) and of course, scalpers using bots to buy up available stock and take advantage of the high demand.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti was previously speculated to come in both 8GB and 16GB VRAM versions, but we’ve seen little reliable evidence to assume this will be available at launch. The current rumors point to the Ti-flavored GPU having 8GB of memory with 6,144 CUDA cores, a step up from the 5,888 cores on the original GeForce RTX 3070.
We ultimately won’t know for sure until Nvidia makes an official release announcement, but we anticipate this will happen as part of its keynote address at Computex 2021, which will be held on June 1 at 1AM EST / 6AM BST / 3PM AEST.
- What is it? Nvidia’s next high-end graphics card
- When is it out? Anticipated to be sometime around June 9 2021
- What will it cost? Nothing official yet, but hopefully competative
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti release date
This GPU has been rumored for some time, so it’s no wonder the expected release date has been all over the place. It’s worth noting that Nvidia hasn’t officially acknowledged the rumors of its existence yet, but given the RTX 3060 Ti was released back in December 2020 with very little fuss, we may just see a similar situation unfold.
The current rumor is that the RTX 3070 Ti will be publicly unveiled at Nvidia’s Computex keynote on June 1, alongside the equally-anticipated RTX 3080 Ti, with the cards available to purchase on June 2 for the RTX 3080 Ti and June 9 for the RTX 3070 Ti respectively.
This is subject to change given we have no official word on the launch, so bookmark this page for the latest word on the street. It’s likely that the RTX 3070 Ti will be pretty difficult to get on launch day with demand for the Nvidia Ampere line being as insanely high as it is.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed that Team Green will include its anti-cryptomining ‘lite hash’ technology into the new Ti GPUs to deter any miners looking to buy up the available stock in bulk, but we have no way of knowing right now if inventory will be sufficient enough without bots and cryptomining enthusiasts adding to shortages.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti price
While we’re hoping that the new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti will be fairly priced, we have no idea what Nvidia will set as a recommended price. The original RTX 3070 MSRP is $499 (£469, AU$809), but thanks to the shortage of available stock it’s unlikely you’ll pick one up for that price unless you can snag it directly from Nvidia as a Founders Edition card.
No pricing rumors have been spotted for the RTX 3070 Ti, but the RTX 3080 Ti has had ‘leaked’ retail prices that suggest a price around $999 (about £780/AU$1,400) so something between the two is a reasonable assumption.
It’s little wonder that Nvidia isn’t shouting about the process of its upcoming GPUs given how inflated the market has become for the original Ampere series, with the coveted RTX 3080 being sold online for almost 3x its MSRP on auction sites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace. And these aren’t just list prices – folk are actually purchasing them at these insane markups after months of failing to buy one.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti specs and performance
The GPU is rumored to be a GA104-400-A1, with 6,144 CUDA cores over 48 SM units. As previously mentioned, we anticipate it will come with 8GB GDDR6X VRAM, but this is still a step up from the GDDR6 in the RTX 3070. It’s also only expected to use a 256-bit memory bus, but this might be rated for 19Gbps with a TGP in the 250W to 275W range.
This isn’t going to be topping the charts of any benchmarks, and certainly not against the likes of the RTX 3090 or any potential RTX 3080 Ti, but this has a good chance of being the ‘best’ choice for most gamers…if the price is right. With the original RTX 3070 being a champion for affordable 1440p and 4K gaming, the additional cores will add some juice to what was already a great GPU.
On the flip side, the minimal adjustments made to differentiate the original RTX 3070 from the upcoming RTX 3070 Ti is incredibly risky. While the RTX 3080 Ti is anticipated to effectively be a reskinned (and hopefully more affordable) GeForce RTX 3090 with half the VRAM, The 3070 Ti doesn’t really have anything to shout about.
A big advantage to the RTX 3070 was its 220W TGP (or Total Graphics Power) which meant that cooling requirements were a lot less intensive than those needed for the beefier 320W RTX 3080, something the Ti version loses if the new TGP estimates are to be believed. Until we get some official benchmarks, it’s unclear if the Ti version will be worth buying over its predecessor.
The price will essentially make or break this release, then. If the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti launches with an MSRP near that of the original RTX 3070, then even a minimal step up in memory performance will make it a worthy investment, but it will also be at the mercy of the potentially inflated prices set by partner manufacturers. Eyebrows have also obviously been raised by gamers and PC enthusiasts over the release of additional GPUs to the market given the availability of existing products, which begs the question of who this product is actually for.
With Nvidia already covering almost every possible angle on the graphics card market right now, at least in theory if you disregard the ongoing stock issues, it’s a little difficult to see what ‘void’ the 3070 Ti intends to fill. We won’t know for sure until the official release, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be impressed enough to eat our words.