author: Bart Woldanski
Rumor: Launch of GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB Canceled
VideoCardz.com has revealed that Nvidia is reportedly not going to release GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB GPUs. What is the reason for this decision?
The launch of the first GPUs from the Ampere family took place on September 17, but still most people who placed their orders on that day are waiting for delivery. Availability is very limited and no improvement is expected this year. Nevertheless, Nvidia is preparing to release more GeForce RTX 3000 series cards. Although only three of them have been officially announced, according to unofficial reports, the company's plans also included the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB. According to VideoCardz.com, which has reached a pair of independent sources, the release of the last two models has been canceled.
- GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB have been canceled.
- Probable reasons: Poor availability of existing models and low supply of GDDR6X memory and 8nm chips from Samsung.
- GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB will come out as planned: in mid-November.
The GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 with doubled memory were to be the December response to competing AMD Radeon RX 6000 chips, which will offer more memory (16GB) than standard versions of these Nvidia cards. According to sources, the plans to release the GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB were not delayed, but abandoned altogether, just as the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti was previously. This is not a particularly surprising decision, given the poor availability of existing card models. Nvidia, together with its business partners, Micron and Samsung, is not even able to meet the demand at the moment, let alone after the release of more models.
Usually the well-informed website VideoCardz.com suggests that canceling of the GeForce RTX 3080 with a 20GB VRAM was dictated by the poor availability of Micron's exclusive new GDDR6X memory. The reason for canceling the GeForce RTX 3070 with 16GB VRAM is unknown. The chipset was supposed to use older GDDR6 memory, so that's not the problem. There have been rumors on the web for weeks that Nvidia is going to switch to a 7-nanometer TSMC process in the Ampere cards planned for 2021 due to problems with acquisition of chips using Samsung's 8-nanometer lithography. This could be a major reason for the abandonment of GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and RTX 3070 16 GB cards.
The above, still unconfirmed information, does not mean that Nvidia will not release Ampere cards with more memory in the future. It is possible that more VRAM will be reserved for refreshed SUPER versions, which will be produced in 7-nanometer process. Fortunately, the weaker model, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, is still on schedule and according to the sources, will be released in mid-November 2020. The debut of the GeForce RTX 3070 with 8 GB of VRAM is still ahead of us, on October 29, and its reviews are expected two days before that date.