Nvidia's been busy this quarter pumping out new Ampere GPUs. The RTX 3080 debuted this week, with the RTX 3090 and RTX 3070 close behind it. But it looks like Nvidia could be bringing even more Ampere cards to market. As spotted by VideoCardz, Gigabyte has leaked three unannounced GPUs: the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3070 16GB.
In the model numbers, you can see the unknown SKUs featuring an "S" at the end of the Ampere numbering scheme. The "S" could stand for "Super," like the last generation or it could possibly stand for "Ti." In any case, these GPUs will be more advanced models of their base tier SKUs as they strive to be some of the best graphics cards available to PC gamers.
| Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti or Super | Gigabyte RTX 3070 16GB | Gigabyte RTX 3080 20GB |
|---|---|---|
| GV-3060SEAGLE OC-8GD | GV-3070SGAMING OC-16GD | GV-308SGAMING OC-20GD |
| Row 1 - Cell 0 | GV-307SAORUS M-16GD | GV-308SAORUS M-20GD |
If these cards are really on their way, it could bring some high price tags, specifically when it comes to the RTX 3080 10GB compared to the RTX 3070 16GB. VRAM costs a lot of money, and if the RTX 3070 16GB is in close proximity to RTX 3080 10GB pricing, buyers will be awfully confused as to which card to get.
In our RTX 3080 Founders Edition review, we determined that the card's 10GB of VRAM is enough for gaming at 4K resolution. Bumping up the VRAM could be a ploy to make the cards competitive against AMD's upcoming RDNA 2-based cards, which are rumored to have large VRAM capacities. Still, more VRAM options is, generally, a good thing, since in the future, we might see some games that require vast amounts of VRAM.
The RTX 3060 Ti's release date is rumored for October. It's expected to be a cut-down RTX 3070 with 4,864 CUDA cores compared to the RTX 3070's the 5,888. The RTX 3060 Ti's memory should stay identical at 8GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, meaning the only change between the two GPUs would be an 18% difference in CUDA core count. Nvidia should be careful with this one. If it prices the RTX 3060 Ti right, it could sway a lot of buyers over to the card over the RTX 3070.
VideoCardz believes the RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 307016GB will arrive sometime after AMD's RDNA 2 launch, with the RTX 3060 Ti arriving earlier, more specifically in late October.
