The pictures of NVIDIA’s upcoming Ampere based RTX 3080 graphics card have reportedly leaked out. As you can see below, this is certainly a wacky design. However, the more interesting parts are the fan positioning and the PCB shape.
Interestingly, NVIDIA has seemed to have returned to a plastic design with one fan on the front and the other on the adjacent side on the bottom. the fan style is also slightly different. The number of blades has been reduced and the overall fan size has also shrunk.
As you can see below, the PCB size is even more weird. While I can’t say whether this is the real deal or not, it certainly is an interesting take. (viagra connect)
As for the specs, reputed Twitter source, kopite7kimi has claimed that the RTX 3080 will come with 4352 CUDA cores and 10GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This is the GA102, the successor to the TU102. That higher than the core count increase we’re used to seeing with every next generation. The Pascal-based GTX 1080 had 2560 shaders, the RTX 2080 had 2944 while the 2080 Super has 3072. Going by tradition, I’d put the core count for the 3080 at around 3.5K cores, but that’s just speculation.
Then, let’s consider the VRAM. 10GB means that we’re either looking at a clamshell memory configuration or a wider bus (than 256-bit). Honestly, I see no reason for NVIDIA to go for the latter as the improvements brought about by the new process and architecture should be more than sufficient to impress gamers and critics alike. Finally, don’t forget to take this with a grain of salt. If you don’t know what a clamshell memory config is, read this:
What’s the Difference Between DDR4 vs GDDR5 vs GDDR6 Memory
