NVIDIA Ampere rumor: NVCache speeds up load times, optimize VRAM usage

We are beginning to learn much more about NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU architecture, with some super-juicy rumors that -- as always -- require a considerable amount of salt.

The latest on Ampere is from YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead, with Tom explaining that has has some "exclusive indsider info" on Ampere. What is talked about in the video above is that Ampere is not just a die shrink (down from 14nm to 7nm) with additional RT cores -- but instead it is a full evolution of the Turing architecture.

One of the new nuggets of information is that NVIDIA will introduce something called NVCache with Ampere, which will act similar to AMD's own technology that debuted with Vega in HBCC (High Bandwidth Cache Controller). Like HBCC, NVCache will use some of the system RAM and SSD of your system, and super-speed game load times and optimize VRAM usage.

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The same sources have said something similar to what I reported not too long ago: that the next-gen GeForce RTX 3060 as a "mid-range" card will have the performance of the now-flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Except, Tom reports that it is in ray tracing -- which seems to make sense. We don't know about the actual performance of this card obviously, which is where the salt is required.

We should hear all about Ampere (or at least as much as NVIDIA will share) during its GTC 2020 keynote in a few days. We should be introduced to the inner workings of the new Ampere architecture, with the GeForce RTX 3000 series cards to be unveiled somewhere around September.

(New) NVIDIA Ampere GA100 Specs

• 8192 CUDA cores @ 1750MHz boost
• 1024 Tensor Cores
• 256 RT Cores
• Unknown amount of GDDR6 @ 16Gbps
• Unknown TDP
• 7nm

More reading on NVIDIA Ampere:

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NVIDIA Ampere GPUs

• GA102 - 84 SMs / 5376 CUDA cores / 12GB GDDR6 / 384-bit bus - 40% faster than RTX 2080 Ti
• GA103 - 60 SMs / 3840 CUDA cores / 10GB GDDR6 / 320-bit bus - 10% faster than RTX 2080 Ti
• GA104 - 48 SMs / 3072 CUDA cores / 8GB GDDR6 / 256-bit bus - 5% slower than RTX 2080 Ti

Older NVIDIA Ampere GA100 Specs

• 8192 CUDA cores @ 2GHz (2.2GHz boost)
• 1024 Tensor Cores
• 130 RT Cores
• 48GB of HBM2e memory @ 1.2GHz
• 300W TDP
• TSMC 7nm+
• 36 TFLOPs peak output

I've already written about rumors that NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU architecture would be up to 75% faster than current-gen GPUs such as the Turing architecture, right after rumors that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing. This is pretty crazy stuff right there.

Not only that, but we've got some rumored specs on the purported GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards, which will both be powered by NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU architecture.

We've already heard that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing, which sent the hairs on my neck standing up. Better yet, you can read about the leaked specs on the purported Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 right here.

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GA103 (GeForce RTX 3080)

• 10/20GB GDDR6
• 320-bit memory interface
• 60 SMs
• 3480 CUDA cores

GA104 (GeForce RTX 3070)

• 8/16GB GDDR6
• 256-bit memory interface
• 48 SMs
• 3072 CUDA cores

AMD also just revealed its next-gen RDNA 2 / Navi 2X plans, something we referred to as Big Navi until just recently. Those specs are monstrous, but they pale in comparison to what NVIDIA has planned for its flagship HPC destined Ampere GA100 beast.

AMD RDNA 2 / Navi 2X / Big Navi Specs

• 7nm node (confirmed)
• RDNA 2 architecture (confirmed)
• 80 compute units
• 5120 stream processors
• 17.5 TFLOPs compute performance
• Hardware ray tracing support (confirmed)