You might have trouble getting an Nvidia RTX 3080 or 3090 until 2021

(Image credit: Nvidia)

If you want to be among the first to get your hands on an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 or RTX 3090, you might have to be quick to get your order in.

According to a report over at TweakTown, Nvidia’s newly-unveiled Ampere GPUs could be in short supply until 2021. Citing industry sources, the report claims that stock will be “extremely low” for the next couple of months, with stock levels to be in tight supply until the end of the year.

The report adds that “the first wave of cards is said to be small, very, very small -- possibly the smallest launch in many years.”

The reason, TweakTown says, is due to uncertainty surrounding the yield of Samsung’s 8nm process. Nvidia allegedly wants to reduce the number of cards being produced until yield can be maximized at Samsung's end. 

Nvidia also wants to keep an eye on what AMD does with its upcoming RDNA 2 reveal, according to the report, as it’s currently unclear how Team Red’s Big Navi GPUs will stack up against the Nvidia’s Ampere cards. 

However, it’s hard to believe that AMD will be able to compete when it comes to performance. All of Nvidia’s new graphics cards, including the $499 GeForce RTX 3070, are more powerful than the RTX 2080 Ti

According to Nvidia, the RTX 3080 doubles the performance of its last-generation Turing flagship, while the RTX 3090 will be the performance king with massive 24GB of GDDR6X memory and 10,000-plus CUDA cores – almost  2,000 more than the 3080. 

If you want to be one of the first to test Ampere’s performance for yourself, it sounds like you might have to be fast. The RTX 3080 will be out on September 17, followed by the RTX 3090 on September 24 and the RTX 3070 sometime in October 2020. 

Carly Page

Carly Page is a Freelance journalist, copywriter and editor specialising in Consumer/B2B technology. She has written for a range of titles including Computer Shopper, Expert Reviews, IT Pro, the Metro, PC Pro, TechRadar and Tes.