The PR chaos does not end with the prices. Did the big price difference between the RTX 4080 versions strike you as a bit weird, too? Almost 400 euros difference for 4 GB more memory?
The reason is that the cards differ not only by memory. The RTX 4080 actually has a different graphics chip that can do significantly less. The number of computing units alone has been reduced by 22 percent compared to the 16 GB variant. Meanwhile, data to and from memory is squeezed through a narrow 192-bit interface. The chip clock is higher, but that’s not unusual for weaker graphics cards.
Why didn’t they just call the 4080 12GB 4070 or 4070 Ti? Nvidia says the card is so powerful it deserves the 4080 title. Apparently the manufacturer ran out of numbers for further model designations. Can not do anything.
The whole thing is somewhat reminiscent of the debacle with the designation of the Geforce GTX 970 4 GB. At that time it came out that 500 MB of memory was only addressed very slowly and the Internet joked about a “GTX 970 3.5 GB”.