Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Reportedly Launching Soon

A source reveals that Nvidia may be getting ready to launch its new RTX 3080 Ti hardware, despite shortages of GPUs currently being experienced.

IC: NVIDIA

Even though 2021 is already nearly a quarter done, it doesn't seem like the PC world is any closer to seeing a resurgence of new GPUs which have been experiencing shortages since last December. The situation has got to the point where Nvidia is asking gamers to use its GeForce Now service until stocks of the RTX 3080 become available again. With people struggling to get hold of any of the latest graphics cards, it would seem a little silly for any company to attempt to launch new hardware at this tumultuous time. However, that's apparently what's about to happen.

While there is no official word from Nvidia yet, a report indicates that the tech giant is getting ready to launch the latest hardware from its 3000 series, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Not only is it apparently happening, but there is a proposed release date as well as a price. Costing $999, the newest in the Ti range will be launching on May 25th, with review embargoes being lifted the day before.

Earlier this year, there were speculations that Nvidia had downgraded the RTX 3080 Ti from 20GB of GDDR6X memory to just 12GB. Sources indicate that this may actually be the case which would make it only slightly more powerful than the 3080 it builds off, which has 10GB of RAM. While the Ti is still a step-up in terms of hardware, it may be a bit of a concern for gaming and PC enthusiasts given that it was originally supposed to have much more than that.

On top of this, Nvidia may also be getting ready to launch the RTX 3070 Ti which was rumored to have been scrapped and built again to compete with AMD. Like its 3070 predecessor, the Ti iteration will come with 8GB of memory, but will have 6,144 CUDA cores instead of 5,888 which, again, will make it slightly better than the standard 3070. However, there is no proposed release date or anticipated price range yet.

All that aside, it's sort of understandable why Nvidia would be looking to launch a series of new graphics cards, given the current state of the market. With chip shortages expecting to go on until possibly 2023, more people wanting GPUs for gaming due to being in lockdown, and some blaming cryptominers for buying up all the stock, it's a wasteland for manufacturers of PC hardware at the moment. On the other hand, it could cause pandemonium as buyers seek to snatch up the new Ti cards and seeing as there's hardly any choice at the moment, these new ones could fly off the shelves.

Via gamerant