It would seem that Nvidia might have encountered a setback leading up to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti's release. According to a message posted on the Board Channels forums, the chipmaker has purportedly pushed the launch date to mid-May. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti was previously rumored to debut in mid-April.
The GeForce RTX 3090 and the Radeon RX 6900 XT are the two of the best graphics cards on the market right now. The truth of the matter is that neither flagship is cheap or in stock. The GeForce RTX 3090 retails for $1,499, while the Radeon RX 6900 XT sells for $999 if you can find one outside of eBay (see our GPU price index). The general consensus is that Nvidia is cooking up the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti to compete with the Radeon RX 6900 XT at the $999 price bracket. In order for that to happen, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti's performance would have to be on equal grounds or better than the Radeon RX 6900 XT.
Nvidia has gone to lengths to keep the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti under wraps, but it presumably takes after the GeForce RTX 3090. It's probable that the graphics card uses the same GA102 silicon. There is speculation that the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti comes equipped with 82 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), same as the GeForce RTX 3090. However, there's another group that thinks that Nvidia might disable two SMs to bring the CUDA count down to 10,240. The latter seems reasonable since Nvidia wouldn't want the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti's performance to be too close to the flagship SKU.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Specifications
| Header Cell - Column 0 | GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti* | GeForce RTX 3080 | GeForce RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture (GPU) | Ampere (GA102) | Ampere (GA102) | Ampere (GA102) | Ampere (GA104) |
| CUDA Cores / SP | 10,496 | 10,496 / 10,240 | 8,704 | 5,888 |
| RT Cores | 82 | 82 / 80 | 68 | 46 |
| Tensor Cores | 328 | 328 / 320 | 272 | 184 |
| Texture Units | 328 | 328 / 320 | 272 | 184 |
| Base Clock Rate | 1,395 MHz | 1,365 MHz | 1,440 MHz | 1,500 MHz |
| Boost Clock Rate | 1,695 MHz | 1,665 MHz | 1,710 MHz | 1,730 MHz |
| Memory Capacity | 24GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 10GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 19.5 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 14 Gbps |
| Memory Bus | 384-bit | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936 GBps | 912.4 GBps | 760 GBps | 448 GBps |
| ROPs | 112 | 112 | 96 | 96 |
| L2 Cache | 6MB | 6MB | 5MB | 4MB |
| TDP | 350W | 350 | 320W | 220W |
| Transistor Count | 28.3 billion | 28.3 billion | 28.3 billion | 17.4 billion |
| Die Size | 628 mm² | 628 mm² | 628 mm² | 392 mm² |
| MSRP | $1,499 | $999 | $699 | $499 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
Reputable hardware leaker kopite7kimi reported that the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti could feature a 1,665 MHz boost clock, 30 MHz lower than the GeForce RTX 3090. If Nvidia applies the same treatment to the base clock then the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti should check in at 1,365 MHz.
On the memory front, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti reportedly features 12GB of 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory, half of what's on the GeForce RTX 3090 and slightly slower. However, it may still retain the 384-bit memory interface. If so, the memory bandwidth would peak around 912.4 GBps. The GeForce RTX 3090 delivers a hash rate up to 106.5 MH/s on Ethereum so it'll be interesting to see just how the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti performs in mining Ethereum.
Previous Ampere launches have taught us that intial supply is extremely limited, and we don't expect the situation to change with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. It'll probably require a miracle to beat scalpers to one, much less find it at the rumored $999 price tag. Let's hope that the extra month gives Nvidia enough time to build up its GeForce RTX 3080 Ti stock. If not, it's time to pull another all-nighter continuously hitting that F5 button in hope to snag one away from the scalpers.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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blacknemesist They delayed it from april to may 2022? What a shame. Maybe we will have it in stores at affordable prices by 2023 unless crypto recovers after the inevitable 2021 burstReply -
bigdragon The 3080 Ti will get cancelled again next month. Then it will be rumored for June with 10 GB of memory and less CUDA cores. Then it'll be cancelled again, resurface with 8 GB, cancelled, 6 GB, cancelled, and eventually the cycle will repeat until the card doesn't exist...not that it existed in the first place!Reply
The EVGA notify queue is still filling orders from September of last year. The backlog is absolutely insane.coloradoblah said:Meanwhile the product they announced 6 months ago is nowhere to be found -
waltc3 In 2021, "Released in May" is likely to mean "Generally available in December." This kind of crap needs to stop. Not picking on nVidia, as AMD just did a Fake Availability Launch (FAiL) for the 6700XT, knowing full well they didn't have beans to ship. Never saw one available in the AMD store. Not one. Same for the 6800XT, which I have been hunting daily, 3-6 times a day, since the 6800XTs' FAiL back last November! Nothing doing--"No 6800XT for you, bub!" has been the consistent message from AMD via the AMD store.Reply
Tsk-tsk, and Lisa Su always talks up how important "gamers" are to AMD. nVidia's been doing FAiLs just as much as AMD. One gets the distinct impression that nVidia and AMD have embarked upon the Vaporware Races--they compete now on FAiLs. Amazing. Who needs GPUs when you can launch epaper? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Why both companies don't come clean and confess that the RTX-3k's and the RX-6ks were far too ambitious for SOA FAB production, and the reason we can't buy them is because they can't make them in the volume quantities needed? A little honesty would be nice. -
coloradoblah Reply
Lol im on it, I figured they stopped doing it, no wonder why I havent seen anything. Signed up in Oct!bigdragon said:The 3080 Ti will get cancelled again next month. Then it will be rumored for June with 10 GB of memory and less CUDA cores. Then it'll be cancelled again, resurface with 8 GB, cancelled, 6 GB, cancelled, and eventually the cycle will repeat until the card doesn't exist...not that it existed in the first place!
The EVGA notify queue is still filling orders from September of last year. The backlog is absolutely insane. -
hotaru.hino Replywaltc3 said:Why both companies don't come clean and confess that the RTX-3k's and the RX-6ks were far too ambitious for SOA FAB production, and the reason we can't buy them is because they can't make them in the volume quantities needed? A little honesty would be nice.
The thing is both the pandemic and the crypto boom in early 2020 massively spiked demand. Manufacturing also has to be reserved well in advanced because well, TSMC/Samsung are the only ones who can make bleeding edge parts and they're usually close to capacity. So NVIDIA and AMD didn't order "enough" parts simply because they were blindsided by the sudden demand and by the time they wanted to ask the manufacturers for more parts, well, said manufacturers were basically booked for the foreseeable future. -
spongiemaster The rumor sites must be getting bored and are just making stuff up now. Why would Nvidia delay a 3080ti release by a month? Certainly not to build up stock. There is no way within reasonable limits that Nvidia could have enough stock at launch to make them last more than a few seconds. If they couldn't do it with the 3060, which has a die less than half the size of a 3080/90, they can't do it with a 3080ti. The 3080ti will be released at some point, and I'm pretty sure the lack of 3080 drops is because Nvidia is using them for ti's, but it's not like Nvidia keeps thinking demand will die in a month or they'll be able to produce enough for a meaningful launch with another month so they keep pushing it back. They've never had a date in mind, so the rumor sites keep making one up every month so eventually they can claim they were right.Reply -
btmedic04 I've been on the que for an evga rtx 3080 since September 25th and still have yet to be notified. so when evga 3090s became available at my local microcenter in November, I bought one. I'm still holding my position in the que because my buddy has been trying to get a 3080 since launch. If i get notified by evga, he'll get the card for the price I paidReply -
atomicWAR This card's release date gets pushed around like a Geek at a bully convention. I hope this date sticks and there is good stock at launch, unlikely as that is.Reply