For reasons that never became entirely apparent to us, following the launch of both the Nvidia 30XX and AMD 6XXX graphics card series, one of the most hotly contested subjects of leak and speculation leading up to the various product launches was how much memory they were going to come with. For example, leading up to the release of the Nvidia 3080 Ti, leaked information alluded to at least three different potential VRAM configurations.
While we eventually ended up with a 12GB GPU, however, following a report via Videocardz, a Gigabyte Aorus 3080 Ti has just been spotted, and, at least according to the packaging, it contains 20GB of VRAM.
Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20GB?
Posted online from a user reportedly located in Russia, the packaging for this Gigabyte 3080 Ti does appear to be legitimate, and, as you’ll note on the label, does seem to suggest that this, rather than the ‘standard’ 12GB of memory, this one comes with 20GB. A configuration that, we should note, was registered multiple times by various AIB partners, but clearly never released.
So, what is going on here? Well, at least at the time of writing, the source of these images has gone rather quiet despite clear requests for pictures of the graphics card itself (and specifically its PCB) to be posted online rather than just the packaging labels. – There is, however, a possible theory here that may provide us with an answer as to why this particular 3080 Ti is denoted to have 20GB of VRAM.
Stock, Supply, And All That Stuff!
As Andy has noted multiple times in past videos (which you can check out here), while scalpers have played a major role in graphics card shortages, it’s just one of many unfortunate factors at play here. However, one of the more interesting aspects is that cardboard is in exceptionally short supply at the moment. And if there are no boxes, there is nothing to put a product in.
As such, we suspect, although clearly can’t confirm, that this was Gigabyte simply using some convenient and mostly correct packaging for a product that was never ultimately released. As noted above, 20GB 3080 Ti GPUs were registered by Gigabyte and this box work may have simply been created in preparation for that and has just been lying around ever since. More so, it was heading to Russia and we daresay that someone at Gigabyte may have presumed that this may not have been noticed due to the huge difference in languages.
However, the only factor that definitely raises an eyebrow is that the SKU listed on this packages perfectly matches a prior EEC registration made by Gigabyte last year. Are we getting a 20GB VRAM Nvidia 3080 Ti though? Well, although entirely possible, I’d suggest that you don’t get your hopes up. In all honesty, I think the 12GB version is (probably) all we’re going to get! – Well, unless the recent rumours of ‘Super’ GPUs are far more optimistic than first thought!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
