Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series Launch Issues - Tech View from Hawaii

Randy here with an update from the frontlines of the GPU Wars! With the release of Nvidia’s latest set of graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 30 series comes both good news and bad news. In short, the good news is that they’re awesome! The bad news is that some users are experiencing issues while playing games. That is, if they’re lucky enough to even find one of the 3080s or 3090s to buy in retail stores! <Sigh> Yet another tech shortage. Goodie.

First, a quick disclaimer: I do not try to put the blame on any particular party or take sides between Nvidia and their third-party vendors. This article is simply my attempt to explain the current situation. I don’t believe that I am qualified to speculate on who is to blame as I don’t know how the relationships between Nvidia and their vendors work.

Also, please note: This will be a follow up of sorts to a previous article, GPU Buyers Guide. If you want a little bit of background you can find it here. Now, without further ado, let’s get on with this…

TL; DR:

• While the GeForce RTX 3080 did not have the promised 2x performance over the 2080, the 3080 is still a huge leap over the previous generation.

• There was an issue where 3080s and 3090s were crashing during heavy loads, but that has been fixed on released cards through a driver patch and will be addressed in newer cards.

• The RTX 3080 is still worth buying; if you can get one, and that takes a Herculean effort right now.

Nvidia’s 3000 series graphics cards have been released into the wild! (Well, sort of… If you could get one and are not a bot!) With that came two things: good reviews and crashing complaints.

First off, let's start with the good news. As predicted, the Nvidia 3080 and 3090 have turned out to be phenomenal cards. After independent review, it turns out that the 3080 kind of/mostly/sort of performs as well as Nvidia said that it would. The 3080 performed anywhere from 50% - 85% faster than the 2080 depending on the task. Not quite double the performance, as they claimed it would be, but still great price-to-performance nonetheless.

The 3090 is a whole different story. Nvidia has claimed that the 3090 is an “8K gaming-ready” graphics card. Unfortunately, it is not. But, if you are a gamer looking for the best of the best, then the 3090 is still for you. However, the 3090 will only give you roughly 10% more performance over the 3080 but at 214% the price. So, if money is no object to you, then the 3090 is the way to go. However, for 99% of gamers out there, the 3080 is the way to go, as it offers the best bang for your buck.

The one other way you could view the 3090 is that it is a (relatively) cheap prosumer/workstation graphics card that can also be used for gaming. For instance, if you are a graphics designer, video editor, engineer who uses a lot of rendering, the 3090 is your best choice.With its 24gb of memory, the RTX 3090 will allow you to process, render, edit, and otherwise work with large data sets that the 3080 would be unable to handle due to its still good but more limited 10gb of memory. If you look at it from this perspective, it's actually pretty well priced. Even though Nvidia is adamant that the 3090 is an “8K gaming-ready” graphics card as opposed to a “workstation” graphics card that can also game really well.

Secondly, the now-irrelevant bad news. Some users are complaining that they are getting crash-to-desktop (CRD) errors. This is happening specifically in some (but not all) third-party RTX 30 graphics cards. Nvidia’s Founder’s Edition cards do not seem to be experiencing this problem. A CRD occurs when you are playing a game and, you guessed it, the game crashes and kicks you back out to the desktop. There isn’t currently a 100% accurate answer, but the general consensus is that there is an issue with the power delivery system, with a particular focus on the capacitors that filter the power going to the processor.

Despite this, don’t worry too much about this issue, because there has already been a driver update that alleviates the issue with current graphics cards and third-party cards will be built with better designs. In spite of these issues plaguing the 3080 and 3090 launch, they are still really good graphics cards.

All in all, I still stick by my assessment in the previous article that Nvidia graphics cards remain a must-buy this time around. Especially the 3080 and the 3070, when it launches. Keep in mind that there will always be new cards coming out, such as the 20gb 3080 variant and the 16gb 3070 variant. So, if you are ready to buy, then just pick one to purchase. If not, you will always be waiting for the next best thing (and there will ALWAYS be a next best thing). On the other hand, if you aren’t ready, it doesn’t hurt you to wait to see what comes out in the near future.

That’s all we have for this update, dear readers and Renegades! Stay tuned to RPC Tech for more from me, Randy, the man with the plan and the View from Hawaii. Aloha ‘oe!