Nvidia Declines to Disclose More Details About RTX 3090 Ti

By Aaron Klotz
published

Did Nvidia halt production of the 3090 Ti?

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti reference
(Image credit: Nvidia)

The second half of February is already upon us, and we still have no additional information from Nvidia related to its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. The information blackout is compounded by a new statement from an Nvidia representative concerning the status of the future flagship GPU. 

"We don't currently have more info to share on the RTX 3090 Ti, but we'll be in touch when we do," said Nvidia spokesperson Jen Andersson in a statement to The Verge.

Last month, Nvidia officially announced the RTX 3090 Ti with an upgraded 10752 core count compared to the vanilla RTX 3090's 10496. While Nvidia was light on other details, it promised to reveal more information -- like pricing and a release date -- later in January.

We're now well into February, and Nvidia is still refusing to share further details about the RTX 3090 Ti, leaving us to speculate why it is delayed. But coincidentally, we covered a report last January about Nvidia halting production of the RTX 3090 Ti due to issues with hardware and firmware. 

Unfortunately, Nvidia never confirmed if the report was true or false. However, if accurate, it makes sense why Nvidia would be holding out this long. We don't know how serious these issues are, but there is nothing unusual about a product glitch or bug delaying a production launch by a month or two.

All we know about the RTX 3090 Ti officially is that it will pack more CUDA cores than the standard RTX 3090 and feature a fully enabled GA102 die. But, based on earlier rumors, the 3090 Ti could pack a memory upgrade on top of the additional CUDA cores.

Based on these reports, the RTX 3090 Ti could feature upgraded 21 GBps Micron GDDR6X, giving the new GPU a 9% increase in memory bandwidth over the 3090. This isn't a huge deal, but it will allow Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti to be the first GeForce card to exceed 1 TBps in memory bandwidth.

Another benefit of the new modules will be doubling capacity from 1GB to 2GB. The RTX 3090 Ti will still carry 24GB of VRAM, but the improved capacity means Nvidia no longer needs to pack memory chips on both the top and bottom of the PCB. This decision would give 3090 Ti cards a simpler PCB design and better memory cooling.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

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5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • husker
    The obvious guess is supply chain, but I suspect issues with power and/or thermals.
    Reply
  • jp7189
    THE EVGA 3090 FTW3 will happily eat 500W and according to gpuz is still power limited in most scenarios. I wonder how much more performance can be had in the Ti version without bumping power to supply melting levels.
    Reply
  • watzupken
    I feel this product was never meant to gamers to begin with. With mining demand quite low (which is why we see better supply of GPUs), there is little reason for Nvidia to release a card that is thermally impossible to tame with air cooling, unless of course miners don't need to run the GPU at high core clockspeed. Miners will mostly prefer the memory to run fast, so it will still be feasible to cool on air with the core downclocked.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    watzupken said:
    I feel this product was never meant to gamers to begin with. With mining demand quite low (which is why we see better supply of GPUs), there is little reason for Nvidia to release a card that is thermally impossible to tame with air cooling, unless of course miners don't need to run the GPU at high core clockspeed. Miners will mostly prefer the memory to run fast, so it will still be feasible to cool on air with the core downclocked.
    By far the biggest obstacle for mining with GDDR6X cards is keeping the memory at acceptable temperatures. The GPU itself is a nonissue, especially when you consider it gets significantly downclocked for ethereum mining. It was pretty much a requirement to change the heat pads on a 3090 FE to safely mine with it near its capabilities. With leaked reports that the 21Gbps GDDR6X is having problems running regular applications, it doesn't sound like it's going to be good for mining unless it gets water cooled. That would be fine for the gamer who was planning on water cooling their one card anyway, but that would not make it a very good option for massive mining farms. However, I don't think there are more than a handful of gamers willing to spend $3000-4000 on this card plus a water block.
    Reply
  • lazyabum
    Yet miners prefer the Nvidia RTX over ASIC rigs because of resale value despite how wornout they get after years of use.
    Reply