NVIDIA's new 'GeForce Now RTX 3080' streams games at 1440p and 120 fps

NVIDIA has unveiled its next-generation cloud gaming platform called GeForce Now RTX 3080 with "desktop-class latency" and 1440p gaming at up to 120 fps on PC or Mac. The service is powered by a new gaming supercomputer called the GeForce Now SuperPod and costs double the price of the current Priority tier.

The SuperPod is "the most powerful gaming supercomputer ever built," according to NVIDIA, delivering 39,200 TFLOPS, 11,477, 760 CUDA Cores and 8,960 CPU Cores. NVIDIA said it will provide an experience equivalent to 35 TFLOPs, or triple the Xbox Series X, roughly equal to a PC with an 8-core CPU, 28GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and a PCI-GEN4 SSD.

As such, you'll see 1440p gaming at up to 120fps on a Mac or PC, and even 4K HDR on a shield, though NVIDIA didn't mention the refresh rate for the latter. It'll also support 120 fps on mobile, "supporting next-gen 120Hz displays," the company said. By comparison, the GeForce Now Priority tier is limited to 1080p at 60 fps, with adaptive VSync available in the latest update.

It's also promising a "click-to-pixel" latency down to 56 milliseconds, thanks to tricks like adaptive sync that reduces buffering, supposedly beating other services and even local, dedicated PCs. However, that's based on a 15 millisecond round trip delay (RTD) to the GeForce Now data center, something that obviously depends on your internet provider and where you're located.

NVIDIA's claims aside, it's clearly a speed upgrade over the current GeForce Priority tier, whether you're on a mobile device or PC. There's a price to pay for that speed, though. The GeForce Now premium tier started at $50 per year and recently doubled to $100, which is already a pretty big ask. But the RTX 3080 tier is $100 for six months (around double the price) "in limited quantities," with Founders and priority early access starting today. If it lives up to the claims, it's cheaper than buying a new PC, in any case.