Nvidia GeForce RTX 4000: Is it worth waiting at all?

Kris Wallburg

Graphics card manufacturers, which will soon include Intel, deliver a new GPU generation every two years. At Nvidia it should be that time again soon, because the rumors are becoming more and more concrete and the launch of the RTX 4000 series (code name: Ada Lovelace) seems to be imminent. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huan has already hinted that a presentation could take place as part of the GTC 2022 keynote on September 20th.

Should buyers who are due for a GPU upgrade prefer to wait for the presentation of the new generation? Or is now a good time to quickly buy a new graphics card. There are arguments for both.

Waiting for RTX 4000? These reasons speak for it

Here are a few reasons that speak in favor of waiting before buying a GPU:

It will not be long

As we mentioned in the introduction, Nvidia is scheduled to launch the new generation of graphics cards on September 20th, which is less than a week away – waiting those few days makes perfect sense. Even if the new GPUs will most likely not be available immediately, you at least know what the manufacturer is planning and how the performance and power consumption should be and, more importantly, what the upcoming models will cost.

Graphics card comparison 2022: GeForce RTX and Radeon RX GPUs in the test

Big jump in performance

According to current rumors, the computing power of the AD102 graphics chip, which will form the basis for the upper class cards of the 4000 generation, could almost double compared to its predecessor. The reason for this is a new structure that offers significantly more streaming multiprocessors (SM) and CUDA cores.

In combination with higher clock speeds, the Ada Lovelace flagship could even become the first gaming GPU to break the 100 TFLOPs barrier. You can read more about this in our article:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4000: Everything about performance, price and release

The RT cores are also likely to be further optimized, increasing ray tracing performance. Even in the upper class, the current generation is regularly pushed to its limits by activated ray tracing at high resolution.

More and faster video memory

In addition, the mid-range cards in particular will finally be equipped with more memory, which is also clocked higher.

According to current rumours
For example, the RTX 4070 has 10 to 12 gigabytes of GDDR6X memory, the RTX 3070 can only access 8 gigabytes.

Higher efficiency with the same power consumption

Even if the power consumption of the RTX 4000 cards will probably increase again compared to its predecessor, thanks to the more modern architecture, the efficiency increases with the same power consumption. So the cards ran more power per watt.

It’s better to strike now: That’s why it’s not worth waiting

There are also some arguments in favor of not making GPU purchase dependent on the new generation or even buy it now before Ada Lovelace is launched:

Current tickets are cheap again

GPU prices have fallen radically over the past few months. Models are again available at attractive prices, especially in the premium segment, where double or triple the RRP was sometimes asked for last year. There are many reasons for this, the willingness to pay and thus the demand for expensive cards has fallen and the crisis-ridden cryptocurrencies are also ensuring that the price for current AMD and Nvidia cards has fallen significantly.

However, industry experts assume that the trend will soon be reversed and prices could rise again. And availability for the release of the RTX 4000 generation remains a black box. The scarcity of resources persists and according to a report from Wccftech, manufacturers have increased prices significantly. GPU manufacturers will likely pass this increase on to customers. If demand then significantly exceeds supply, prices could reach unimagined heights.

The opposite is currently the case: dealers are trying to empty their warehouses for the new GPU generation and lure customers with discount campaigns.

Cheaper than ever: high-end graphics cards with RTX 3080 Ti and 3090 (Ti) at the best price

Mid-range cards may be released later

If you believe various leakers, Nvidia will launch the various RTX 4000 models in a staggered manner. It starts with the RTX 4090, it is rumored that sales will start in October. The RTX 4080 is to follow in November, and the RTX 4070 will not be launched until around Christmas. However, this is not guaranteed, other rumors assume that only the RTX 4090 will be available this year and that cheaper GPUs will not follow until 2023.

The mid-range RTX 4060 and RTX 4050 cards are not expected until 2023.

Enormous power consumption

We praised Ada Lovelace’s likely performance above, but that performance comes with a price. The current generation of graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia have bought their performance increase with a significantly higher power consumption and if you look at the previous rumours, this trend will probably continue. The top model, the RTX 4090 (Ti), could demand up to 800 (!) watts from the power supply. It should be noted that this is the maximum permissible power consumption, the actual consumption should be significantly lower. Nevertheless, the power consumption will probably increase significantly compared to the predecessor, rumors speak of up to 600 watts, which means that a new power supply unit will even be necessary in case of doubt. With the current electricity prices, this is not exactly a trend that is going in the right direction.

Current cards still perform very well

If you are looking for a card with which you can play all games, you will also find what you are looking for in the (still) current line-ups from Nvidia and AMD. The RTX 3080 and Radeon 6800XT offer even the most demanding gamers enough power for all current games in UHD resolution at high settings. They are plentiful and comparatively cheap – whether that will also be the case with the RTX 4000 models is uncertain.