In its heyday, RTX 3080 Ti was one of the most-powerful graphics cards on the planet, second-only to RTX 3090. However, the GPU’s 12GB buffer held back any high-resolution ambitions and remains a shortfall now too. It seems Nvidia experimented with giving its pixel pusher a boost in this regard, as a 20GB variant has recently emerged and sold for a hefty sum.
Someone purchased the unreleased RTX 3080 Ti 20GB via eBay for a cool $1,999.99. For context, that’s $500 more expensive than RTX 3090 was at launch and that GPU not only boasts more performance but more VRAM too. Naturally, the rarity of the item plays a significant part in its perceived value, and this graphics card’s practically one-of-a-kind.
From the outside, this RTX 3080 Ti 20GB Founders Edition looks identical to the existing model. However, on the underside, a telltale label reading ‘not for sale, for development only’ reveals the card’s prototype nature.
Looking underneath the surface, though, reveals a large pool of memory. There is 20GB worth of GDDR6X modules surrounding the GA102 GPU, but only 10 are shown in the eBay listing. These are either 2GB chips or another 10 are resting on the other side of the PCB.
Unfortunately, the seller doesn’t provide detailed specifications about the prototype beyond its larger VRAM capacity. As such, there’s no way of knowing if there are changes to the memory bus to accommodate the bigger buffer.
I’m keen to see if the buyer gets the card up and running, as they’ll need third-party drivers to do so. Even then, there’s no guarantee that this prototype will function like an RTX 3080 Ti, regardless of its larger buffer.
It’s a shame Nvidia didn’t launch RTX 3080 Ti 20GB in some capacity, as it undoubtedly would’ve helped the GPU better meet the demands of today’s games. At the very least, I’m glad it saw sense to unlaunch RTX 4080 12GB and pair successors like RTX 4080 Super and RTX 5080 with 16GB.
