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After a delay, NVIDIA have now released the next-gen GeForce RTX 3070 along with a brand new Linux driver. The delay was supposed to give retailers more time to sort stock, and as expected they all sold out very quickly, most stores sold out within an hour. Trying to buy a new GPU on release day continues to be something of a fools errand.

The GeForce 3070 is the current lowest end of Ampere, although we've seen leaks that other models will be coming which is expected just like they've done for all other generations. Although, you might want to check out what AMD just revealed with the Radeon 6000 series too.

As a reminder, here's the comparison between the new three Ampere models in the 3000 series:

  GeForce RTX
3090
GeForce RTX
3080
GeForce RTX
3070
NVIDIA CUDA® Cores 10496 8704 5888
Boost Clock (GHz) 1.70 1.71 1.73
Standard Memory Config 24 GB GDDR6X 10 GB GDDR6X 8 GB GDDR6
Memory Interface Width 384-bit 320-bit 256-bit
Ray Tracing Cores 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation
Tensor Cores 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation
NVIDIA Architecture Ampere Ampere Ampere
NVIDIA DLSS Yes Yes Yes
PCI Express Gen 4 Yes Yes Yes
NVIDIA G-SYNC® Yes Yes Yes
Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6 Yes Yes Yes
HDMI 2.1 Yes Yes Yes
DisplayPort 1.4a Yes Yes Yes
NVIDIA Encoder 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation
NVIDIA Decoder 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation
VR Ready Yes Yes Yes
Maximum Digital Resolution (1) 7680x4320 7680x4320 7680x4320
Standard Display Connectors HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
Multi Monitor 4 4 4
HDCP 2.3 2.3 2.3
Length 12.3" (313 mm) 11.2" (285 mm) 9.5" (242 mm)
Width 5.4" (138 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm)
Height 3-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 93 93 93
Graphics Card Power (W) 350 320 220
Recommended System Power (W) (2) 750 750 650
Supplementary Power Connectors 2x PCIe 8-pin 2x PCIe 8-pin 1x PCIe 8-pin

If you do wish to keep an eye on stock for when more come in, you can try at these stores:

NVIDIA also released a new driver, as they usually do as they get their new GPUs supported on Linux as soon as they release to show their commitment to Linux users. NVIDIA 455.38 went up, here's the changes:

  • Added support for the following GPUs:
    • GeForce RTX 3070
  • Fixed a bug in nvidia-settings that caused the SLI Mosaic Configuration dialog to position available displays incorrectly when enabling SLI Mosaic.
  • Added support for using an NVIDIA-driven display as a PRIME Display Offload sink with a PRIME Display Offload source driven by the xf86-video-intel driver.
  • Fixed a bug in a Vulkan barrier optimization that allowed some back-to-back copies to run unordered.
  • Fixed a performance regression in the NVIDIA X driver which affected some X11 RENDER extension use cases.
  • Added AMD Secure Memory Encryption compatibility.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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4 comments

Kallestofeles Oct 30, 2020
!https://media1.tenor.com/images/a828888852e708d9afaaad06c7f9513f/tenor.gif?itemid=10251428
Checking the stock availability... nope, still nothing.
I dearly hope that AMD's launch will be a bit better than this.
Purple Library Guy Oct 30, 2020
So if the "NVIDIA Encoder" is 7th generation, but the "NVIDIA Decoder" is only 5th generation, does that mean the chip can't decode things it encodes?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 30 October 2020 at 3:11 pm UTC
pete910 Oct 30, 2020
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Not intersted, AMD for me

If the benchies that AMD showed are true the 3070 is not that great TBH.
pete910 Oct 31, 2020
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???? Got a notification that I had been quoted.
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