What just happened? Following months of rumors, it appears that the elusive RTX 3080 Ti’s arrival is imminent. After pallets of MSI cards were photographed in transit to Los Angeles last weekend, we now have what’s claimed to be images of its GA102-225-A1 die and mining performance—without Nvidia’s mining limiter applied, presumably.
The images, courtesy of VideoCardz, include a GPU-Z screenshot that shows the previous rumors of 10,240 CUDA cores, 12 GB of GDDR6X at 19 Gbps, and 384-bit memory bus were accurate. It also confirms a 1,365 MHz base clock and a 1,665 MHz boost clock, lower than the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090.
Image credit: VideoCardz
What’s especially interesting in the screengrab is that it reveals the RTX 3080 Ti’s Ethereum mining performance; a very impressive 118.9 MH/s, ahead of the RTX 3080 (95 MH/s) and just under the RTX 3090 (120 MH/s to 125 MH/s). It’s worth noting, however, that the card here has had its TDP reduced to 278W and memory overclocked to 21.4 Gbps.
Image credit: VideoCardz
Before you start worrying that this will be another GPU grabbed in bulk by miners the second it goes on sale, don’t worry; there is a large caveat. Nvidia is reportedly adding a mining limiter to all its new cards, as well as new variants of its current RTX 30-series, that renders ineffective the developer driver it accidentally released.
Given that the driver used here doesn’t recognize the RTX 3080 Ti, it’s likely this card is a sample being tested before Nvidia introduced the mining limiter. The final product will likely have half the shown hash rate or lower.
With boxes of the RTX 3080 Ti apparently on their way to LA, it looks as if the previously reported May launch date could be accurate. The next Ampere entry is now said to be priced at $1,099 rather than $999, but don’t expect that to put off gamers—and scalpers, sadly.