Nvidia quietly makes the RTX 3080 12GB official

After months of speculation, rumours and leaks, the RTX 3080 12GB is finally official. Not thanks to a press release or announcement post though, Nvidia just quietly updated the product page for the existing RTX 3080 10GB, adding the 12GB model's new specs.

After everything we have heard about the RTX 3080 12GB, I was very surprised when Nvidia's CES 2022 keynote ended and the new SKU remained unannounced. It is now official, just without the usual fanfare we'd expect from a new GPU – and we are using the term ‘new' very loosely here.

The first stage in making the RTX 3080 12GB official came from today's 511.17 Game Ready Driver, which publicly adds support for the GPU (as spotted by VideoCardz). Then at 2pm, the RTX 3080 product page was updated, adding in the new specs and product details for the 12GB model.

Image source: Nvidia

As rumoured, it is a very minor upgrade over the original RTX 3080 10GB. It has an extra 2GB VRAM as well as a wider 384-bit bus, increasing memory bandwidth to 912GB/s, compared to 760GB/s for the 10GB model. It also sports an extra two streaming multiprocessors (SMs), meaning an extra 256 CUDA Cores, which is just a 3% increase. These small changes do also see an increase in the rated power draw of the board, which is now 350W – the same as the RTX 3090.

It is overall a very underwhelming upgrade, and I can't say I am surprised Nvidia kept this announcement as low-key as they did. We don't have a card for review but Nvidia did tell us driver support for the RTX 3080 12GB would only be starting with today's public driver, implying there were no press drivers seeded ahead of time, which isn't exactly a strong vote of confidence in their product.

At the time of writing, no official MSRP has been communicated by Nvidia.

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KitGuru says: The RTX 3080 12GB is barely an upgrade over the original RTX 3080 and I wouldn't expect it to be more than 5% faster at most.

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