Before we get into the matter we have to make a clarification to understand the context of this article and you can understand the reason why this RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB is special and differs from the model that is currently on the market.
Each GDDR6X memory chip that is now on the market is connected through a 32-bit data bus, two channels of 16, so if we have a 320 bus then we can place ten chips and therefore 10 GB which is the standard RTX 3080 configuration. As well in the GDDR6X there is a mode called clamshell which is that we can place two memories sharing the same bus of oneThis increases capacity and not bandwidth, making it possible to use a 20GB configuration on an RTX 3080 without changing the bus.
Is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20GB any closer?
The answer to this is yes and it seems that it has appeared in a Russian hardware components store a fully functional 20GB RTX 3080 Ti, specifically it is a GIGABYTE Gaming OC.
Under what we have explained, you will have deduced that the bus of the RTX 3080 Ti with 12 GB is the same as the RTX 3090 and therefore has a 384-bit bus, which means that it is more powerful and it is nonsense to speak of a RTX 3080 Ti with a narrower memory interface. Does this mean that the Russian store is lying and this is a setup? Well no, since NVIDIA was about to launch the RTX 3080 Ti with 320-bit bus and 20 GB earlier this year., but they decided to pull back and some graphics cards were sold, even custom versions such as the model we are talking about.
It is an RTX 30 Pre-LHR model
This would be demonstrated by the fact that this graphics card would have been built before the current RTX 30 LHR with trimmed mining capabilities that NVIDIA began selling from last May. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise given the original date of the canceled RTX 3080 Ti which pre-dates the mining limits. This is demonstrated by the fact that get a rate between 86 and 100 million hashes despite being a GPU with a lower power than the recently launched RTX 3080 Ti that obtains a speed of 65-66 due to the limitations that have been placed on it.
In any case, due to the rarity of this graphics card, it has a really great market value, since few models have been made and it did not go on sale to the general public. Being one of the most loved pieces by graphics card collectors. So whoever has one of these 20 GB RTX 3080 Ti has found a unique treasure, at the moment they have already paid 3000 US dollars for a unit, possibly for mining, but we cannot ignore that it is a unique piece.
To finish, don’t expect to see NVIDIA launch an RTX 3080 Ti with 20 GB, rather a non-Ti model making use of possible 2 GB GDDR6X chips instead of the current ones that have half the capacity.
