Gigabyte accidentally reveals RTX 3070 16GB and RTX 3080 20GB GPUs

[mongeese]

Something to look forward to: Gigabyte may have accidentally confirmed that Nvidia’s upcoming Super graphics cards will feature twice as much memory as their standard counterparts. Although, it’s more of a reconfirmation for the RTX 3070: Lenovo’s similar error from a few weeks back already hinted at an upgrade for the series.

On their website, Gigabyte has a list of graphics cards that will come bundled with a free copy of Watch Dogs: Legion. Included are five unannounced cards: an “N306S 8GD” model, two “N307S 16 GD” models, and two “N308S 20GD” models.

In other words, an RTX 3060 Super with 8 GB of memory, an RTX 3070 Super with 16 GB of memory, and an RTX 3080 Super with 20 GB of memory. Some think these will be Ti editions, not Super... but what’s the difference.

For reference, the standard RTX 3070 has 8 GB of memory, and the RTX 3080, 10 GB. The RTX 3090 has 24 GB.

Although the relatively low memory capacities of the RTX 3000-series have been a common target for criticism, testing shows that they’re not posing much of a bottleneck. It’s unclear how much performance could be gained by doubling memory capacity. Here are Nvidia’s Justin Walker’s comments on the matter.

Q: Why only 10 GB of memory for RTX 3080? How was that determined to be a sufficient number, when it is stagnant from the previous generation?

A: We’re constantly analyzing memory requirements of the latest games and regularly review with game developers to understand their memory needs for current and upcoming games. The goal of 3080 is to give you great performance at up to 4k resolution with all the settings maxed out at the best possible price.

In order to do this, you need a very powerful GPU with high speed memory and enough memory to meet the needs of the games. A few examples - if you look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Metro Exodus, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Gears of War 5, Borderlands 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 running on a 3080 at 4k with Max settings (including any applicable high res texture packs) and RTX On, when the game supports it, you get in the range of 60-100fps and use anywhere from 4GB to 6GB of memory.

Extra memory is always nice to have but it would increase the price of the graphics card, so we need to find the right balance.

It can be assumed, the new cards would come to counter to AMD’s big Navi. We’ll have to wait and see if the memory boost is enough to keep Nvidia in first place.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/86811-gigabyte-accidentally-reveals-rtx-3070-16gb-rtx-3080.html

 

[R00sT3R]

Whilst a 3080 with more memory was a no brainer, given the ridiculously large delta between it and the 3090's 24GB, I'm surprised more memory is all its looking like its going to be.

I thought they'd at least hold off for 6mths before releasing them, with a small boost to clock speeds & Cuda Core count, to bring them within 10% or so of the 3090's performance, to justify a probable $1000 price tag.

If an extra 10GB is all it's going to be, with no extra FPS juice under the hood, I really can't see them being able to charge more $800 for the FE cards.

 

[Vulcanproject]

The issue is that console generations always introduced a steep and near immediate step in memory requirements. Since true memory hungry next generation titles are designed solely for those consoles with the additional memory in mind.

After 2013 on many titles 2GB video cards were toast on higher settings, even higher end ones like GTX680. Simply because of new games on console easily having 3GB+ of memory available for video.

The impact looks less pronounced this transition. For one, the increase in memory available to next gen consoles is only double what it was seven whole years ago. The smallest generational increase in the history of consoles. PS4 had SIXTEEN times the memory of PS3. Likewise, PS3 had over twelve times the total memory of PS2.

Secondly you are seeing BOTH Sony and Microsoft designing flagship games at least early on that are cross generational, on old hardware with more limited memory constraints. Series S only has a pretty pitiful 10GB of total RAM with probably no more than about 5GB available for video usage. Everything going forward must still run on it.

I would prefer a brand new high end card with more than 10GB but it seems less likely we'll see a big jump in memory demands too soon.

 

[VitalyT]

I thought nVidia's looked awfully greedy on memory for the new cards.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Let me get my bot ready...

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Whilst a 3080 with more memory was a no brainer, given the ridiculously large delta between it and the 3090's 24GB, I'm surprised more memory is all its looking like its going to be.

I thought they'd at least hold off for 6mths before releasing them, with a small boost to clock speeds & Cuda Core count, to bring them within 10% or so of the 3090's performance, to justify a probable $1000 price tag.

If an extra 10GB is all it's going to be, with no extra FPS juice under the hood, I really can't see them being able to charge more $800 for the FE cards.

3080Ti (20GB) is due within 1-2 months to combat Big Navi (16GB).

 

[maroon1]

WOW. People still giving memory tooo much importance

None of today games need more than 8GB to run well. Even games that can consume more than 8GB do not need more than 8GB to run well as long as the GPU is fast enough. Doom Eternal can consume 9GB on 4K max setting but it it still runs over 60fps on RTX 2080 super. So memory is not an issue here

Microsoft Flight Simulator can consume more than 8GB on highest setting, but no GPU on this planet (even RTX 3090) have enough power to run it max out. So, GPU speed is the real culprit. If you have GPU with 2x speed of RTX 3080 but same 10GB it will still run 4K games way better than any card with 20 or 24GB or whatever vram it have.

Also, there is many games that use more video ram when free video ram is available, but it does not mean it needs that memory. Video memory become an issue if stutter and lag is causes by low video ram, but none of the games today have any issue even with 8GB let alone 10GB

 

[Gahl1k]

Whilst a 3080 with more memory was a no brainer, given the ridiculously large delta between it and the 3090's 24GB, I'm surprised more memory is all its looking like its going to be.

I thought they'd at least hold off for 6mths before releasing them, with a small boost to clock speeds & Cuda Core count, to bring them within 10% or so of the 3090's performance, to justify a probable $1000 price tag.

If an extra 10GB is all it's going to be, with no extra FPS juice under the hood, I really can't see them being able to charge more $800 for the FE cards.

The RTX 3080 is already within 10% of the RTX 3090.

 

[brucek]

I wish I could buy a card that included empty memory slots for future expansion if/when needed. The memory is expensive now, it's unclear when more would be useful, and it may be less expensive by then.

 

[Evernessince]

Well it's a good thing stock is so low, now people have a chance to see if these higher memory cards make an impact. I wonder what the ETA is for these cards, I definitely want to see performance of these before picking a card.

 

[PEnnn]

"Although the relatively low memory capacities of the RTX 3000-series have been a common target for criticism"

Seriously?? They just came out and barely anybody has them, so who is doing this criticizing??

This who memory thing is just a red herring. What games are suffering from the "lack of memory" ?? Almost all seem to run perfectly with 4 - 8 GB of VRAM. But "somebody" is not happy with that....!!

 

[zamroni111]

3080 super will upset 3080 early buyers and scalpers.
Don't buy ampere until rdna2 announcement and nvidia's response

 

[gdavid65]

Funny how everybody is trying to talk down the just released 3080 because "something better" will come around.. Yep, that always happens.

There will be higher spec'ed cards but GDDR6X does not come cheap so there will be a corresponding price jump to match. Eventually 10gb might not be enough for future titles (maybe 8k textures), but it will be a couple of years until that happens.

I remember owning a 3gb 1060 which was fine for the first couple of years, but after that many titles really required 6gb at higher res, or the frame rate would really drop. By that point however you needed to really buy a 2060 to power the higher res anyhow.

 

[grumblguts]

PC gaming is getting less and less attractive with how consoles are looking.

 

[McMurdeR]

PC gaming is getting less and less attractive with how consoles are looking.

In what way? The 3080 and the impending PC parts coming in Q4 already look to be pulling decisively ahead of anything the incoming consoles can deliver from a pure power perspective. Add to that the fact that existing PC gamers' libraries (some of which are substantial) reap all the benefit without compatibility issues, the gaming PC looks to be in as good a place than it's ever been.
I'm not saying the new consoles don't look wonderfully exciting and compelling - they do. But there's no way the PC is falling behind. It appears to be holding fast to its position as the most powerful, persistent, scalable and adaptable platform for anyone with more than a casual interest in gaming.

 

[SG736F6]

PC gaming is getting less and less attractive with how consoles are looking.

I don’t think so. For me it’s not just about hardware and performance. I can have a very similar experience gaming on my PC with my Xbox One controller, and pay far less for the games. The pricing of games is all that matters to me. Over the years, time and time again, console games are typically much more expensive. That’s what it’s about for me. For example, my daughter games on both her computer and Xbox. Most of the time the games are far cheaper on PC than the Xbox so she plays much less on the console than the PC.

For example she wanted to play the new Crash Bandicoot. On Xbox is was 2x more expensive than on PC. So we bought it for PC.

 

[loki1944]

Not accident

 

[DCGColts]

Whilst a 3080 with more memory was a no brainer, given the ridiculously large delta between it and the 3090's 24GB, I'm surprised more memory is all its looking like its going to be.

I thought they'd at least hold off for 6mths before releasing them, with a small boost to clock speeds & Cuda Core count, to bring them within 10% or so of the 3090's performance, to justify a probable $1000 price tag.

If an extra 10GB is all it's going to be, with no extra FPS juice under the hood, I really can't see them being able to charge more $800 for the FE cards.

you go back 6 years ago it was like 4gb then 6gb, then 8gb, now slowly 10gb I would feel safe with 12gb but 10gb no. Only way I'm getting 10gb over 12+ is if I am fine with taking chance I might need to upgrade gpu in 2 years.

 

[TheBigT42]

"accidentally"

 

[godrilla]

PC gaming is getting less and less attractive with how consoles are looking.

Wait for big Navi gpu price wars. You are basing judgment on enthusiast level graphics. The real console competition comes from medium level Ampere and RDNA 2.0 competitive gpus not the high end!

 

[Fred Lead]

I don’t think so. For me it’s not just about hardware and performance. I can have a very similar experience gaming on my PC with my Xbox One controller, and pay far less for the games. The pricing of games is all that matters to me. Over the years, time and time again, console games are typically much more expensive. That’s what it’s about for me. For example, my daughter games on both her computer and Xbox. Most of the time the games are far cheaper on PC than the Xbox so she plays much less on the console than the PC.

For example she wanted to play the new Crash Bandicoot. On Xbox is was 2x more expensive than on PC. So we bought it for PC.

Console pricing sells the hardware at a loss and makes up for it with software sales. These days there are a few retailers that can lower the price, like the Humble Store, but usually there is limited availability.

On PC there are usually a few free games a week, thanks to Epic's fight with Steam. The Humble Bundles and Monthly is also a good way to expand a game library. By adding all the platforms to GoG Galaxy my library has over 1200 games with more than 1600 emulated games GoG doesn't count. Buying a new console is like starting over again with limitations and exceptions. Playstation is more compelling but I like Xbox controllers better. Usually, I can get a game for half off on the complete edition if I am excited about it, or wait until it pops up on the Humble Monthly if isn't super compelling.

I also have a Switch and games hardly ever have sales and never at the same kind of discount as on PC. Waiting longer with Nintendo sometimes means you'll never get it.

 

[Edster]

In what way? The 3080 and the impending PC parts coming in Q4 already look to be pulling decisively ahead of anything the incoming consoles can deliver from a pure power perspective. Add to that the fact that existing PC gamers' libraries (some of which are substantial) reap all the benefit without compatibility issues, the gaming PC looks to be in as good a place than it's ever been.
I'm not saying the new consoles don't look wonderfully exciting and compelling - they do. But there's no way the PC is falling behind. It appears to be holding fast to its position as the most powerful, persistent, scalable and adaptable platform for anyone with more than a casual interest in gaming.

Console vs PC is never about power. One can argue, the console war has been consistently won by the lowered powered device. PS2 is not faster than Xbox, the PS3 was more powerful than the X1, performance wasn't the reason PS4 won last gen. N64 was overall more powerful than the PSOne. The PS Vita/PSP or whatever, has always been more powerful and always do worse than what Nintendo offers. Nintendo has got by releasing underpowered machines for years, still managed to be successful. High power X080 Ti gaming machines is a niche market. Heck, I game on the R9 380 right now, power is definitely not why I game on the PC. The hoards of 1060 users clearly don't care to have the absolute power, they are very popular on Steam.

What doesn't help is how much gamer stuff is marketed and the strength of choice is the weakness. Gaming keyboard (linear, tactile. clicky, whaaat?), mouse (this I can get behind, different hand sizes), sure. Mouse mat, headphones/microphone, monitors (G-Sync, Free Sync, response time), gaming chair. That's before AMD vs Nvdia, Intel vs AMD, what is Ryzen, what is Ampere, Big Navi, who cares?). This is a boatload of information when non-techies knowledge don't extend much beyond i7> i5 >i3. Most people don't care, they just want their Warzone or Fortnite.

Consider when the PS4 was released, it gave you a controller, a microphone, you are ready. Consoles had always been about simplicity, you buy it, plug it in, insert game, you are in. So long as mainstream games are made so that consoles aren't missing out, consoles will remain very attractive. The appeal of PS5 and XSX is that is a generational leap but still remain simple.

 

[Dimitrios]

Console pricing sells the hardware at a loss and makes up for it with software sales. These days there are a few retailers that can lower the price, like the Humble Store, but usually there is limited availability.

On PC there are usually a few free games a week, thanks to Epic's fight with Steam. The Humble Bundles and Monthly is also a good way to expand a game library. By adding all the platforms to GoG Galaxy my library has over 1200 games with more than 1600 emulated games GoG doesn't count. Buying a new console is like starting over again with limitations and exceptions. Playstation is more compelling but I like Xbox controllers better. Usually, I can get a game for half off on the complete edition if I am excited about it, or wait until it pops up on the Humble Monthly if isn't super compelling.

I also have a Switch and games hardly ever have sales and never at the same kind of discount as on PC. Waiting longer with Nintendo sometimes means you'll never get it.

Best comment.

 

[TravisRyno]

I wish I could buy a card that included empty memory slots for future expansion if/when needed. The memory is expensive now, it's unclear when more would be useful, and it may be less expensive by then.

YES! That would be good! Like we could back in ancient times!

 

[TravisRyno]

Console vs PC is never about power. One can argue, the console war has been consistently won by the lowered powered device. PS2 is not faster than Xbox, the PS3 was more powerful than the X1, performance wasn't the reason PS4 won last gen. N64 was overall more powerful than the PSOne. The PS Vita/PSP or whatever, has always been more powerful and always do worse than what Nintendo offers. Nintendo has got by releasing underpowered machines for years, still managed to be successful. High power X080 Ti gaming machines is a niche market. Heck, I game on the R9 380 right now, power is definitely not why I game on the PC. The hoards of 1060 users clearly don't care to have the absolute power, they are very popular on Steam.

What doesn't help is how much gamer stuff is marketed and the strength of choice is the weakness. Gaming keyboard (linear, tactile. clicky, whaaat?), mouse (this I can get behind, different hand sizes), sure. Mouse mat, headphones/microphone, monitors (G-Sync, Free Sync, response time), gaming chair. That's before AMD vs Nvdia, Intel vs AMD, what is Ryzen, what is Ampere, Big Navi, who cares?). This is a boatload of information when non-techies knowledge don't extend much beyond i7> i5 >i3. Most people don't care, they just want their Warzone or Fortnite.

Consider when the PS4 was released, it gave you a controller, a microphone, you are ready. Consoles had always been about simplicity, you buy it, plug it in, insert game, you are in. So long as mainstream games are made so that consoles aren't missing out, consoles will remain very attractive. The appeal of PS5 and XSX is that is a generational leap but still remain simple.

I imagine anyone who's never used a PS3 (or later) wouldn't see it that way; consoles are nowhere near the plug and play machines they used to be.

....mainly it's the menu systems. On today's consoles, they are just so convoluted