Nvidia’s next line-up of graphics cards is now believed to be just 10 days away, supposedly making their debut during the company’s GeForce Gaming Celebration on August 20th. While this was thought to concern the tentatively titled GTX 1180, patent filings suggest that the Green Team could be introducing an entirely new range under the ‘RTX’ banner.

Anyone following what they can of Nvidia’s next-generation architecture will know it’s been a confusing one, with Ampere, Volta and Turing being touted as the sequel to Pascal. This turned out to be somewhat true for Volta, appearing in workstation and datacentre-focused cards, while the other two have yet to appear in any official capacity beyond a leak.

It seems that Turing is certainly on the cards, however, as Nvidia has now officially trademarked the name with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This is also backed up by leaks of Nvidia's new GPU codenames, including the TU104, the same number allocated to previous generations dating back to the GTX 680. The GPU carrying this code is none other than the RTX 2080, according to YouTuber AdoredTV.

Nvidia’s RTX branding has cropped up before, revealed to be the title of firm’s efforts with real-time ray tracing technology. The final two trademarks filed by Nvidia list the “GeForce RTX” and “Quadro RTX,” suggesting that it could be possible we will see its new ray tracing tech reserved for a newer, perhaps higher-end brand than the already established GTX series.

AdoredTV’s source highlights interesting details about the rumoured cards, including supposed performance increases on the current Pascal generation. Of course, like Ampere, RTX cards remain firmly in ‘rumour’ territory until Nvidia officially announce the division in its GTX line-up, but it does remain to be questioned why the chipmaker would want to make its popular line of cards obsolete on release if it still plans to go ahead with the whispered GTX 1180.

KitGuru Says: If this does prove true, I’m curious as to how developers would handle ray tracing technology while still making the game accessible to GTX owners. Would it work like Nvidia GameWorks or something entirely new?

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