Nvidia has taken the lead in the next-generation GPU wars with its GeForce RTX 30 series, and next month AMD will strike back with its Radeon RX 6000 lineup. But as we have seen with all previous generations, the battle will not stop at the opening rounds. On a related note, a leaked roadmap from one of Nvidia's add-in board partners suggests that a few more Ampere cards are right around the corner. [Specifically, Nvidia appears to have at least three models in the pipeline, including the GeForce RTX 3060, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti or Super, and another version of the GeForce RTX 3080 with 20GB of memory, double the current model.

The roadmap was shared at a Galax presentation in China. A photo of the roadmap first appeared in a now-deleted post on Baidu, but was later shared on Twitter by @9550pro (via Videocardz). See:

While obviously not official, it makes sense that Nvidia would have more SKUs in the GPU holster. Which GPUs will appear when depends on how AMD's Big Navi performs; Nvidia's Ampere lineup currently consists of just three, but even the upcoming GeForce RTX 3070 (the lowest SKU) is a good bet for the previous generation GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is claimed to be faster than the previous generation GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Nevertheless, the GeForce RTX 3060 seems like a foregone conclusion. Not everyone is willing to spend more than $499 for a graphics card, and as with the previous generation, there will no doubt be cheaper options available. [This is likely to be a Ti or Super variant of the 3070, falling between the 3070 ($499) and 3080 ($699); unless Nvidia's introductory price range is switched, it will probably be a $599 graphics card. That is if the leaked roadmap is accurate.

Price aside, there is certainly room for another card between the 3070 (5,888 CUDA cores, 8GB GDDR6 memory) and the 3080 (8,704 CUDA cores, 10GB GDDR6X memory). The only unusual thing would be for a Ti or Super variant to appear so close to the launch of the regular model. But if the Big Navi doesn't live up to the hype, the competitive landscape could be very different this time around. I look forward to that time.