The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 offers itself a small makeover by arriving in a version with 12 GB of GDDR6X and a little more computing units. If the graphics card is available, its price is stratospheric: € 1,800 on average.
After a little over a year of existence, the GeForce RTX 3080 from Nvidia is getting a little facelift in order, no doubt, to be better armed against the future Arc Alchemist from Intel. A launch that takes place in the greatest discretion, the American company not having wished to do so at the time of CES in Las Vegas. Even more surprisingly, it is through online resellers – who have been referencing the card for a few hours – that we learned of the officialization of this variation, Nvidia not even having given a complete press release to it. .
In short, the GeForce RTX 3080 arrives in a version with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, or 2 GB more than the initial version. This addition is not insignificant because it de facto stretches the memory bus from 320 to 384 bits, thus making a jump in the memory bandwidth: 912 Gb / s against 760 Gb / s. Identical values to those of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. And while the GA102 GPU is still in control, it is somewhat remodeled. It is no longer satisfied with 8,704 calculation units but offers 8,960. The operating frequencies remain unchanged.
Nvidia has apparently not planned a reference model. We will therefore not find a Founders Edition at a controlled price and we will have to fall back on third-party models made by the brand’s partners.
If its availability – at the time of this writing at least – could console us, we quickly come down to earth by discovering the price charged: € 1,800 on average, with certain references even exceeding € 2,000. And as always, everyone will pass the buck on this situation which, in the end, benefits both resellers and Nvidia. Heartbreaking.