Rumours about a 20GB version of the RTX 3080 and a 16GB version of the RTX 3070 have been discussed since the launch of the RTX 30 series. These cards were even listed in Gigabyte's Watch Dogs Legion redeeming form and mentioned in Galax's roadmap, but apparently, they have now been cancelled.
Scheduled for an alleged release in December, the RTX 3080 20GB and RTX 3070 16GB SKUs won't be launched anymore. This comes from VideoCardz, citing information from “two independent sources”.
Both cards were expected to rival the likes of the Radeon RX 6900/6800 series, which are said to feature 16GB memory buffers and the Navi 21 GPU.
No reason for such action was disclosed by Nvidia, after all, neither GPU was officially announced. Maybe the yields on the GDDR6X memory used by the RTX 3080 20GB weren't good enough, but this wouldn't affect the RTX 3070 16GB cards, which were expected to come with GDDR6 memory. It's also possible that Nvidia is speeding up the reported transition to TSMC's 7nm node to launch the Super variants sooner.
No change of plans was reported regarding the RTX 3060 Ti, which is expected to come out by mid-November.
KitGuru says: Would you buy an RTX 3080 20GB or an RTX 3070 16GB if they were to become available? Do you think Nvidia will increase the memory buffer if it launches the RTX 30 Super variants?