Rumour indicates NVIDIA might be BIOS locking RTX 3080 memory bus forcing 12GB to 10 GB
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sverek
Awesome, this is kind of a panic button for Novidia, if AMD delivers something decent 😀
schmidtbag
I don't understand the point of artificially disabling working hardware. Who gains from it? Nvidia is still going to sell higher-end models regardless.
Brasky
maybe that'll be the 3080 TI? Unlocked and optimized.
pharma
Any last minute AMD bios "clock" performance tricks will need to go the extra mile.
wavetrex
This is why you don't buy at launch day folks !
(unless there's piles of money laying around somewhere in your house and taking too much space)
We waited so long, we can wait a bit longer until the launch battle ends and winners and losers are known.
(A month or two of driver optimizations can't hurt as well)
screwtech02
More Sketchy as *$&K stuffs from the Green team....
-Tj-
maybe bios mods can unlock it? Would be awesome 😛
pegasus1
I bought my 1080Ti FE on launch day and it went up in price the next week and never went back down, i think i paid £695 from Amazon.
Embra
Well this is rumor.
It is only really sketchy if they sell it as a "12 GB" card and not the locked 10 GB.
Still rumor.
10 GB is low for an 3080 in my opinion.
strength
Is this too unusual? Well, who's to say?, remember what happened with AMD's Radeon 5700XT 12 Gbps being bumped to 14 Gbps two days before release?
You are referring to the 5600XT, not the 5700XT. Upon the release date and even that there were versions with 12 Gbps DDR6. After that MSI and other global vendors sent the products with the update towards 14 Gbps.
Kool64
2gb of dead ram not unlike the 970 perhaps?
Kaarme
Well, Nvidia gains, potentially. The reasoning was explained in the article: A real (not artificially locked) 10GB with a lesser bus would be cheaper for Nvidia to manufacture, this generating more profit, assuming the price wouldn't change. So, it's all about the money. It's all 'bout the dun dun do do do.
Undying
10gb on a 3080 will be such a fail. It will be silly makret it as 4k capable when its clearly not unless you want playing with medium textures.
Cerb3rus
not as good as a red team 5600 XT bios upgrade
Silva
Both teams are full on dirty tactics now. This usually would go unnoticed, but people like to leak stuff.
I'm hopeful that under Lisa Su leadership this year AMD could get closer to that high end crown.
Maybe they can grab that crown from Nvidia with RDNA3.
schmidtbag
Unless I'm mistaken, the article makes it sound like it would come with 12GB but only 10GB is accessible. Otherwise yeah, if there's actually 10GB then you're right - it is cheaper. But, maybe what the article was trying to say is the GPU is limited to 10GB, so OEMs are prevented from adding more?
Stormyandcold
If you think this is dirty, then, you know nothing about business. NDA stops me talking.
JamesSneed
This should be a good year to get a GPU around the end of the year. We haven't had a close release of high end cards from both Nvidia and AMD since 2009 when AMD released the 5870 in September of 2009 then Nvidia launched the GTX 480 later in March of 2010. AMD had the performance crown for just over 6 months. I frankly don't know what to expect this time around but should be interesting that is for sure. I say all of this because proper competition will put an end to all shenanigans.
Fox2232
I doubt someone would not notice 2 extra 1GB chips on so called 10GB card.
Kaarme
The 12GB, artificially locked, would be only the first batch of them. If there's no need (AMD can't compete), the manufacturing would switch to genuine 10GB, limited bus models, which would be cheaper to make (and obviously can't be unlocked). However, if AMD can compete, Nvidia will need to swallow its tears, unlock the early cards, and have future production be 12GB straight out of the factory. So, Nvidia would only be using a plot like this for the chance it might be able to save money in the future.
The future GPU chips would have "extra" memory controllers disabled, so OEMs couldn't make their own fancy versions. Before that, I guess Nvidia would just forbid it. It's not like the custom card manufacturers could go against Nvidia's rules if they want to receive the GPUs.
