NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB models have reportedly been canceled as alleged by Videcoardz. According to the rumor, NVIDIA has told its AIB partners to cancel all plans for the GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB graphics cards.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB & GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB Graphics Cards Canned, Alleges Rumor
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB did exist and there were plans to launch these cards at some point in late 2020. However, the latest developments & news from AIBs that the source has received suggests that these two graphics cards are more or less canned & will not see a launch this year.
Rumors and speculation for the doubled memory GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards picked up the heat soon before the cards were officially introduced. There were reports of multiple variants which include the GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16 GB, and the GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB to launch later this year to tackle the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards with double the memory.
However, the latest information suggests that this won’t be the case anymore. The exact reason for the cancellation is unknown but there could be two main reasons. We know that NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series lineup currently has a tight stock due to huge demand which NVIDIA is unable to full-fill.
NVIDIA’s CEO himself stated that the GeForce RTX 30 series supply issues will be resolved by the next year (2021). However, at the same time, NVIDIA may have decided to just move ahead with the lineup they have and adjust their GPU stock to them rather than the higher-memory variants. So in a way, NVIDIA is focused on delivering its current products rather than launching more products in their stack which they cannot fulfill in demand till 2021.
Even NVIDIA’s integration partners had these cards popping up and listing various times in their catalogs. The most recent one was the SilverStone GPU support list for its PSUs which clearly listed the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti but was later removed. The partners were provided plans for the GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16 GB, and GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB graphics cards but are now seemingly abandoned with only traces like this left.
The other reason and this is a more crucial factor is the availability of GDDR6X memory. Unlike GDDR6, Micron is the only memory manufacturer which is producing GDDR6X memory and the reports have suggested poor availability of GDDR6X DRAM for GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 3070 may not be affected as much as the higher end cards since it relies on GDDR6 memory and that is made by several manufacturers including Samsung and SK Hynix.
Komachi states in his tweet that the issue is more so to do with Samsung’s 8nm process node yields rather than GDDR6X memory availability. This is obviously up for debate but it looks like NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB and GeForce RTX 3070 16 GB, which many users were waiting to get, won’t see the light of day. There’s a slight possibility that we may see higher memory variants next year under a new branding and name but for now, it looks like the cards are done and dusted.