Asus accidentally confirms GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with 20 GB of memory

[mongeese]

Editor's take: Since their September launch, there's been no new Nvidia RTX GPUs on shelves. Since their November and December launch, there's been no new AMD Radeon GPUs on shelves. Let's call that round one, and let's declare it a draw and look to round two: when there's cards on shelves, and gamers get to vote with their wallets, who will they crown champion?

Nvidia, says Nvidia. (Paraphrased for clarity.)

Nvidia came out swinging with the RTX 3000 series, but they've got a surprising left hook waiting in the wings. Asus has accidentally confirmed the existence of the RTX 3080 Ti, and revealed that it has 20 GB of memory. The new card targets the RX 6900 XT.

Asus' support site listed these two unreleased GPUs, but has since been updated to remove them. One might be a factory overclocked model, and the other a reference clock model. Via Videocardz.

A 20 GB variant of the RTX 3080 has been rumored for months, as have similar upgrades down the stack: 16 GB RTX 3070 models, and 12 GB and 6 GB RTX 3060 models, are also anticipated. Nvidia's Jeff Fisher, the senior VP of GeForce, is expected to announce them at a virtual event on January 12. Rumors suggest a February release.

On the performance spectrum, the Ti models will fall just above their vanilla counterparts. Increased memory will provide a few percentage points' worth of improvement, more at higher resolutions, and the rumored increased clock speeds and core counts could round out a ~10% upgrade. Their prices could be similarly boosted in a worst-case scenario, but will more likely land just a hair above the current MSRPs. The vanilla models might also be discounted as a result.

But questions remain. If Nvidia is selling every card they can produce already, why do they need upgraded versions? (Does this mean they're anticipating more stock?) If DLSS and ray tracing are GPU selling points, why aren't they prioritising those? (Fine, low blow on my behalf…) But, most importantly, will AMD strike back?

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/88086-asus-accidentally-confirms-geforce-rtx-3080-ti-20.html

 

[LuckyMenace]

Nvidia is up selling simply because they were planning a response to AMD when their GPU drops. Nvidia saw that the 6800XT comes with 16GB of VRAM means that their upgrade SKU can come with 20GB. Nvidia already saw this coming so a simple doubling of VRAM is an easy answer. They also have plenty of chips not binned high enough for 3090 but too powerful for 3080 with a huge $800 price gap in between. It’s an easy fit to price it $899-1299 for the Ti variant.

I bet 3080 owners will feel shortchanged because many bought it for the 4K experience and 10GB is barely cutting it.

 

[CanAqua]

There will not be any to buy since companies can't control the buy-out from resellers... oh nice pipe dream NVidia.

 

[Nobina]

It's good they are releasing these while there are stock issues. Once they are gone, hopefully soon, we will know exactly which card is the best for what.

 

[nnguy2]

I hope they're called Limited Edition...

 

[tellmewhy]

If it had and AV1 video encoder and decoder would be even better card. If AMD at the next generation of cards fill that gap together with dlss at 5nm would be the leading GPU.

 

[ShadowDeath]

Nvidia is up selling simply because they were planning a response to AMD when their GPU drops. Nvidia saw that the 6800XT comes with 16GB of VRAM means that their upgrade SKU can come with 20GB. Nvidia already saw this coming so a simple doubling of VRAM is an easy answer. They also have plenty of chips not binned high enough for 3090 but too powerful for 3080 with a huge $800 price gap in between. It’s an easy fit to price it $899-1299 for the Ti variant.

I bet 3080 owners will feel shortchanged because many bought it for the 4K experience and 10GB is barely cutting it.

People should be used to it by now. Nvidia did this before with the 900 series cards. "There won't be a Ti model" - Nvidia

"Here is our new Ti model" - Nvidia back peddling like crazy a few months later.

It's a shitty situation to be in. Nvidia drops a 3080 and says no Ti model. People buy the 3080. Nvidia back peddles and announces the Ti model.. People WILL sell their 3080 and buy the Ti model. Nvidia sells more GPUs this way.

 

[Uncle Al]

Sounds like it's time to take out a 3rd Mortgage on the house .....

 

[Carmaine]

This is definitely a crazy surprise. There's never been a **80Ti model ever.

 

[TomSEA]

Available in 2025...

 

[amghwk]

Those poor, restless 3090 owners who rushed to buy anything the most expensive as soon as they saw one out .....

 

[SixTymes]

Sweet. I'm interested.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Tfw I haven't seen an nvidia gfx card selling anywhere near msrp for a decade.

 

[brucek]

I don't understand their rollout strategy at all. Back in September, why not announce that first there will be supply-constrained 20GB 3080ti "collector's edition" for $999 available in Q4, and that the $699 version will be available in Q1 2021.

They'd still have sold out all their 2020 capacity, they'd have kept more of the margin vs giving it to scalpers, they'd have made better cards that will hold up better over time, and they're still free to make any adjustments to the lower priced 3080 based on AMD announcements as needed.

 

[psycros]

The only thing Nvidia hates about scalpers if the the fact that their making almost as much as NVIDIA itself on their cards. Its the resellers who are getting shafted because the scalpers make MORE than they do. Why aren't Newegg, Amazon et all limiting orders by both credit card and delivery address? It would be nothing for them to code into their shopping carts.

 

[Austinturner]

I don't understand their rollout strategy at all. Back in September, why not announce that first there will be supply-constrained 20GB 3080ti "collector's edition" for $999 available in Q4, and that the $699 version will be available in Q1 2021.

Some people think Nvidia is playing 4D chess, but I suspect they are in crisis mode because of supply and competition.

My suspicion is that they anticipated that GDDR6X would be their supply limiting factor, so they cut the memory back across the range, instead samsung fab capacity or yield or something else hit them. Then AMD came out with more memory (most consumers won’t care its only gddr6) on cards that performed better than they expected and Nvidia have had to bring forward their higher memory Ti plans (which were always planned for when gddr6x supply improved).

They’ll probably shuffle prices around on the lower memory cards to make them more competitive and leave the Ti cards at a premium (room to move because gddr6x costs them a packet).

The one card that is dead in the water is the 3090, it was designed to scrape the cream from the top end of the market but it hasn’t had much time to do it and the Ti will have to be more competitively priced. I would leave it to wither and release a Titan later in the year.

 

[Dimitrios]

I "accidentally" tripped over my 3080ti and landed on my girlfriend. She is now pregnant!

 

[PEnnn]

Oh look, another nVidia card, Scalper's Edition!!

 

[loki1944]

Seriously stop calling this crap an accident; reads like a tabloid.

 

[Austinturner]

Seriously stop calling this crap an accident; reads like a tabloid.

Do you think that Asus would have actually deliberately leaked this before Nvidia by listing it on a support site? It certainly looks like an accident (and nvidia is probably pissed at Asus for it).

 

[jonny888]

Those poor, restless 3090 owners who rushed to buy anything the most expensive as soon as they saw one out .....

Why would they care at all? They'll still have the better card, even if its only minor (and if someone bought a 3090, they probably wanted the best regardless)

 

[loki1944]

Do you think that Asus would have actually deliberately leaked this before Nvidia by listing it on a support site? It certainly looks like an accident (and nvidia is probably pissed at Asus for it).

Yes, because hype+advertising. I'm sure nvidia is heartbroken and enraged they didn't have the "accident" and the hype train is rolling.

 

[Austinturner]

Yes, because hype+advertising. I'm sure nvidia is heartbroken and enraged they didn't have the "accident" and the hype train is rolling.

A leak from nvidia might make sense at this time so that people hold off ordering an amd card...but a leak via an aib partner like this doesn’t seem like how they would go about it. Also, Asus has nothing much to gain from the leak. Also, if you are going to leak things deliberately, you still don’t want it happening on someone else’s schedule, hence nvidia is probably unhappy it happens out if their control.

I don’t know why you think this particular case was deliberate?

 

[DonquixoteIII]

I wonder what the 3090 TI specs will be?

 

[mongeese]

I wonder what the 3090 TI specs will be?

Luckily, that's unlikely to happen. There are three ways in which Ti cards can be made superior to the regular editions: memory, clocks, and cores. The RTX 3090 already uses the maximum amount of GDDR6X memory that the architecture can handle, so they can't upgrade that. And the clock speeds can't be increased because there's already barely any overclocking headroom.

The core count could technically be upped. The RTX A6000 has the maximum number of cores supported by the chip, at 10752. But the RTX 3090 already has 10496. So that upgrade is pretty negligible and Nvidia isn't likely to do it.

So yeah, no RTX 3090 Ti.