RTX 3080Ti release postponed to February, RTX 3060 6GB and 12GB to launch separately

Initially expected to release in January, the RTX 3080Ti launch has reportedly been postponed to February. The RTX 3060 6GB variant has also been delayed, separating its release from the launch of the RTX 3060 12GB cards.

Nvidia has yet to officially announce the RTX 3080Ti, but rumours and leaks about this SKU have been painting a clear picture of where it will sit among the remaining GPU options from the company.

As reported by IgorsLab, Nvidia has been analysing the AMD RX 6000 series cards and comparing them with their own. According to most benchmarks out there, even with a bigger memory buffer, AMD RX 6800/6900 XT cards still fall short against the RTX 3080/3090 in 4K resolutions, despite trading blows at lower resolutions. Apparently, this is due to “cache prediction issues” on the AMD cards.

Our own reviews of the RTX 3080, RTX 3090, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT GPUs back this up. In our testing, we've found the RX 6800 XT to be 6% behind the RTX 3080 on average at 4K. On average, we've also found the RX 6900 XT to be 10% behind the RTX 3090 on average.

Given the RTX 3080/3090 performance compared to the competition, Nvidia now has more time to prepare the launch of the RTX 3080Ti, pushing its release from January to after the Chinese New Year, which ends on February 17th. Nonetheless, the release is still planned for Q1 2021.

Regarding the RTX 3060 graphics card, the 12GB model is expected to be announced during CES 2021 (11-14th January) and released between late January and early February. Just like the RTX 20 series, Igor also shared that the RTX 30 series nomenclature should finish at the “xx60” SKU, claiming that the rumoured RTX 3050Ti will be sold as the RTX 3060 6GB. This would mean that despite having the same name, both 12GB and 6GB variants would feature different specifications.

KitGuru says: Are you waiting for the release of the RTX 3080Ti? Would you pick the 12GB variant of the RTX 3060 over the 6GB if the only difference is the memory buffer?

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