Although there hasn’t been an official announcement, we’ve known for a while that Nvidia is working on the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti. These updated cards will offer a solid boost in performance over their base counterparts, and they’ll feature a redesigned GPU that should limit crypto mining performance.
If the leaks and rumors are accurate, both cards are right around the corner. Given the current GPU shortage, you need to know as much as possible before these cards launch. We rounded up everything we know about the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti, including price, release date, and specs.
Pricing and availability
Nvidia hasn’t officially unveiled the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti, but an announcement is imminent. Retailer leaks originally pointed to a May 26 launch date for both cards. Now, it looks like they’ll arrive a little later than that. The most recent reports suggest that Nvidia will announce both cards on May 31 and that product reviews will go live on June 2 for the RTX 3080 Ti and June 9 for the RTX 3070 Ti.
We don’t know the launch dates yet, but assuming the review embargoes are correct, we expect the cards to launch the day of reviews or a day after. Based on previous launches, Nvidia will lead with its Founders Edition cards and board partner cards will come shortly after. We don’t have word on pre-orders, but Nvidia doesn’t usually do them.
Although we know a lot about when the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti are coming, we don’t have as much information about how much they’ll cost. Regardless of the cost, both cards will sell out immediately. The GPU shortage is still in full force, so we expect the cards to sell out right away and stay out of stock for months.
Leaks point to the RTX 3080 Ti launching with an MSRP of $999. That makes sense given Nvidia’s current product lineup, but you won’t find one for that price. Retailer listings show that third-party cards could sell anywhere from $1,300 to $2,200. Nvidia will likely launch the card at $999, but it will end up selling closer to $1,500.
We don’t have any information about RTX 3070 Ti pricing, but there’s really only one price it could be: $599. The RTX 3070 is $499 and the 3080 is $699, leaving a space for the 3070 Ti in the middle. Again, it likely won’t sell for $599, but that’s the price we expect from Nvidia. There’s no saying how much the card will actually cost at retailers.
Performance
Nvidia hasn’t announced the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti, so the specs below are subject to change. They’re accurate to the best of our knowledge, but the information comes from leaks and rumors.
| RTX 3080 Ti |
RTX 3070 Ti | |
| GPU | GA102-225 | GA104-400 |
| CUDA cores | 10,240 | 6,144 |
| Tensor cores | 320 | 192 |
| RT cores | 80 | 48 |
| Base clock | 1,365MHz | TBA |
| Boost clock | 1,665MHz | TBA |
| Memory | 12GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6X |
| Memory speed | 19Gbps | 19Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 912GB/s | 608GB/s |
| Memory bus | 384-bit | 256-bit |
| TDP | 320 watts | TBA |
Starting with the RTX 3080 Ti, it’s very similar to the RTX 3090. The 3080 Ti comes with the 256 fewer CUDA cores, two fewer RT cores, and eight fewer tensor cores compared to the 3090, which shouldn’t make any difference in practice. By all accounts, the RTX 3080 Ti has identical specs to the 3090. The big difference is that the 3080 Ti comes with half of the VRAM of the 3090, sporting 12GB of GDDR6X instead of 24GB.
The 3080 Ti is a significant step up from the 3080, which is already an absurdly powerful graphics card. The updated model comes with over 1,500 more CUDA cores, 12 more RT cores, and nearly 50 more tensor cores. The 3080 Ti is clocked slightly lower than the base 3080, but with more cores under the hood, that shouldn’t make a difference.
On the other hand, the 3070 Ti looks like a marginal upgrade over the base 3070. The new model comes with around 500 more CUDA cores, but only two more RT cores and eight more Tensor cores. It comes with the same 8GB of VRAM and the same 256-bit bus, though the updated Ti model comes with GDDR6X memory.
Given the specs, the 3080 Ti will be a showstopper. It’s basically a 3090 targeted at gamers, forgoing the video memory required for 3D modeling and other professional workloads for raw gaming power. It should blow every other card out of the water. The RTX 3080 already beats AMD’s top-of-the-line RX 6900 XT in most benchmarks, and we expect the 3080 Ti to only further that lead.
The 3070 Ti is tough to place. It is still firmly below the base 3080, though above the base 3070. Given that, it should perform better than AMD’s RX 6700 XT but worse than the RX 6800 XT. It’s best to wait for third-party benchmarks, but given the global semiconductor shortage, that may not be possible.
A new GPU with a hash rate limiter
The RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti will feature a new GPU core. This is part of a larger effort by Nvidia to curb demand from cryptocurrency miners, hopefully pushing them away from gaming cards to specialized CMP cards. The new GPUs are said to have a cryptocurrency hash rate limiter, which will automatically cut performance when the card detects mining. Nvidia is quietly refreshing the entire 30-series range with these new GPUs. Performance is identical, but the new cores will feature the hash rate limiter.
Hopefully that will lower the demand from miners for the new cards. Nvidia tried previously to limit the hash rate of the RTX 3060, but accidently disabled the feature through a software update. Needless to say, miners were quickly able to bypass the restriction.
The new approach — dubbed Lite Hash Rate or LHR — should solve the problems the RTX 3060 had. The latest information suggests that downgrading the BIOS won’t work, making it impossible for miners to use the cards. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s true.
Resizable BAR, ray tracing, and more
The new GPUs aren’t just there to limit crypto mining. They’ll also bring Nvidia’s Resizable BAR feature, removing the need for new customers to update their vBIOS. Resizable BAR is a feature that can marginally improve performance on recent components by allowing the processor to access the graphics card’s memory. It’s similar to AMD’s Smart Access Memory (SAM) feature, but Resizable BAR works on Nvidia cards with either an AMD or Intel processor (SAM requires all AMD components).
Both the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti will come with RTX features like DLSS and ray tracing in supported games. These two features are already in a great spot for Nvidia, so we don’t expect any changes with the 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti.
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