Don't have the cash for an RTX 3080? GeForce Now will support Nvidia Ampere

(Image credit: Nvidia)

PC gamers will be able to access the power of the Nvidia Ampere architecture for cheap, thanks to the company's GeForce Now service. 

While Nvidia has yet to make its first consumer Ampere-based GPUs like the RTX 3080 official, the company has confirmed to PC Gamer that it plans to bring the 7nm architecture to its GeForce Now game streaming platform. 

"We want GeForce Now to be an opportunity for gamers to experience the latest gaming technology from Nvidia," said Andrew Fear, Sr. product manager, GeForce Now. "Therefore, you can expect to see Ampere on GeForce Now in time."


This means if you want to experience what Nvidia Ampere has to offer but don’t fancy coughing up for a brand new graphics card, you'll be able to simply sign up to GeForce Now instead, which costs just $5 a month for the first 12 months with a Founders membership. 

You might want to sign-up soon, though. When quizzed as to whether it planned to remove its introductory fee, Nvidia told PC Gamer that “we’ll think about this next year."

However, it's unlikely Ampere will be available on GeForce Now any time soon. Although Nvidia’s first Ampere-based GPUs are expected to launch in September, it's worth remembering that Team Green's Turing architecture didn’t arrive on the streaming service until a few months after the architecture’s initial late-2018 debut.

PC Gamer speculates that if Nvidia's aspirations for GeForce Now are met, "Ampere will arrive in the cloud sooner than Turing made the leap."

If online speculation are anything to go by, Ampere on GeForce Now will be worth waiting for. Just this week, a leak claimed Nvidia’s incoming Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card will deliver an impressive 20% performance increase over the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti –  Nvidia’s most-powerful Turing GPU.

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.