New Filing Hints at a Memory Upgrade for RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 Ti

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (Image credit: Nvidia)

A new Gigabyte submission (via momomo_us) to the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) indicates that Nvidia will be endowing the GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti with more memory. The usual word of caution applies since not everything submitted to the EEC makes it to the market, but we've seen many rumors of higher VRAM editions already, and it makes plenty of sense.

The GeForce RTX 2060 12GB, which was rumored for some time, officially debuted today. Gigabyte's latest filing hints at imminent memory upgrades for two of the best graphics cards on the market. While the GeForce RTX 2060 12GB seems to target cryptocurrency miners, the revamped GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti should be for gamers, assuming that miners don't get their hands on the fabled graphics card first.

The GeForce RTX 3080's 10GB of GDDR6X has often been the subject of discussion among enthusiasts and hardcore gamers. For a graphics card that retails for $699 and is aimed at 4K gaming, 10GB of onboard memory doesn't seem like a bargain these days. AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT, which competes with the GeForce RTX 3080, has a lower MSRP ($649) and more memory (16GB). Having more memory is a plus since it allows you to step up to higher resolutions or access high-resolution textures.

Assuming Gigabyte isn't pulling our leg with this filing, the renovated GeForce RTX 3080 may get the bump to 12GB of VRAM. It's not a huge uplift, but it's an upgrade nevertheless. There's still a question of whether that's GDDR6 or GDDR6X memory, however. With a wider 384-bit interface, 16Gbps GDDR6 would provide 768GBps of bandwidth, just a touch more than the current 320-bit interface with 19Gbps GDDR6X yields, and the card would have 20% more capacity.

GeForce RTX 3080 12GB and RTX 3070 Ti 16GB (Image credit: EEC)

With the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, Nvidia opted for GDDR6X memory at 19 Gbps, which is a substantial upgrade over the GeForce RTX 3070's GDDR6 chips at 14 Gbps. While this helped boost the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti's overal memory bandwidth, Nvidia stayed with the 8GB capacity, which has been a concern for long-term usage. Many modern titles already push the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti's prowess at the higher resolutions, especially if you enable ray tracing.

Again, the Gigabyte submission indicates that a new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti will sport up to twice as much memory as the original. Here we would assume the card will stick with GDDR6X, but Nvidia is often willing to tweak specifications to get the needed supply of parts, so that may or may not hold true. Double the memory with slightly less bandwidth might still end up being a net win in some minds.

In other news, there was also mention of the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, the rumored upcoming Navi 24-based graphics card that could debut in January 2022. The chipmaker hasn't used the Navi 24 die in any product yet so the Radeon RX 6500 XT would be the first RDNA 2 graphics card to do so. It's reportedly an entry-level graphics card, so the specifications won't set any performance records. We're looking at maybe 1,024 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit interface. Gigabyte's part numbers confirm the latter.

Similar to what the GeForce RTX 2060 12GB represents, the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16GB will be premium versions of the GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, respectively. We expect higher pricing as well, though with current GPU prices already paying no heed to MSRPs, how high they'll go remains to be seen.

Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • -Fran-
    Nice to see they realized their GPUs needed more VRAM, finally.

    My cynical self ponders if they really did it because it was "gamers" asking for it, lol. Still a good thing, so good on nVidia for adding more VRAM on those cards, finally.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • Too bad nobody but scalpers and miners will get them all
    Reply
  • sizzling
    -Fran- said:
    Nice to see they realized their GPUs needed more VRAM, finally.

    My cynical self ponders if they really did it because it was "gamers" asking for it, lol. Still a good thing, so good on nVidia for adding more VRAM on those cards, finally.

    Regards.
    I can see the 12GB on a 3080 being useful although I am yet to run into any problems with my 3080 10GB gaming at 1440p and 4K.

    However 16GB on a 3070Ti just seems like a marketing gimmick so they can probably price it at the same as 3080 10GB when they discontinue it.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    sizzling said:
    I can see the 12GB on a 3080 being useful although I am yet to run into any problems with my 3080 10GB gaming at 1440p and 4K.

    However 16GB on a 3070Ti just seems like a marketing gimmick so they can probably price it at the same as 3080 10GB when they discontinue it.
    I do VR and most games use at least 9GB VRAM (most are still tuned around 8GB), but I can confidently say new VR games will use way more. That's why I have been utterly disappointed with nVidia this gen and why I see this as a very good thing.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • sizzling
    -Fran- said:
    I do VR and most games use at least 9GB VRAM (most are still tuned around 8GB), but I can confidently say new VR games will use way more. That's why I have been utterly disappointed with nVidia this gen and why I see this as a very good thing.

    Regards.
    What a game uses and what a game needs can be very different. Most games will use more when it available. I do however think 12GB on the 3080 is a better amount, I just think 16Gb on a 3070Ti is more about marketing and pricing
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    sizzling said:
    What a game uses and what a game needs can be very different. Most games will use more when it available. I do however think 12GB on the 3080 is a better amount, I just think 16Gb on a 3070Ti is more about marketing and pricing
    That's a bit of unnecessary semantics in this context, although I do get your point. I cannot tell (and expect) a developer to cap their memoy usage at 8, 10, 12 or 16GB+, or expect a game to cap at any arbitrary value, so I can only talk from what I see the games I have and play on actually use and infer from that, as I have 16GB (6900XT) of VRAM available to measure, they are capped and coded around 8GB, but still going all the way to 9GB at times. The one that's used the most is Half Life: Alyx at 9.5GB, and then VRChat is always hovering around 7.5GB, depending on the world and the texture quality of it.

    So, I'm not so sure, in particular, the 16GB of the 3070ti to be a gimmick. Sure, it probably is to any person playing under 4K or not using VR, but these are not "mainstream" cards anymore. And the people willing to spend the shekles know exactly the purpose they'll give to them. I have a friend, who is a game developer, and he needs a 3090 to not only play games, but also develop, for example. If the 3080 would've been a 16GB card, he could have skipped getting a 3090, for instance. And so on. Certainly not your "general use case" and I'll agree (preemtively) there, but given the price range I did expect more on day 1 from these cards. Again, I'm glad nVidia realized this, but I am now wondering if it is truly because of "gamers" xP

    Regards.
    Reply
  • renz496
    if people think RT is a gimmick for gaming then this extra VRAM thing is even more so. 3070Ti 16GB? that's like putting 4GB on GT710.
    Reply
  • alceryes
    Several games now use over 10GBs of VRAM with settings cranked up to max. (used, not allocated)

    VRAM amounts on GPUs needs to be matched to that GPU's rasterization power. Some cards (the RTX 3060 12GB and the RTX 2060 12GB) are mismatched with too much VRAM. They will run out of rasterization power before they can make good use of all that memory (over the next couple/few years). The RTX 3080 10GB has the opposite issue. It will run out of VRAM before it tops out in rasterization power. The 12GB cards seem like just marketing ploy. Manufacturers want to make it look like this is a NEW CARD (jazz hands) so they double the memory.
    Reply
  • sizzling
    alceryes said:
    Several games now use over 10GBs of VRAM with settings cranked up to max. (used, not allocated)


    Ah but max settings :eek:

    PjDgKXe8gxsView: https://youtu.be/PjDgKXe8gxs

    Although I do agree a top end gpu should be able to do it if you want
    Reply
  • renz496
    alceryes said:
    The 12GB cards seem like just marketing ploy.

    they only upgrade 3080 to 12GB to encourage people going for 3070Ti or 3090. nvidia probably will not going to make many of this new 3080. after all nvidia makes more money selling GA102 chip as 3090.
    Reply