NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X packs more upgrades than just more memory

NVIDIA has just quietly announced the new GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X. While it was heavily rumored previously, I somewhat expected it to not arrive at all, considering that NVIDIA did drop two cards during their CES 2022 keynote, but lo and behold, the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X is now official, with more than just extra memory.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X: wider memory bus, more CUDA cores

As discussed in an earlier article about the leaks, the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X will tout a wider 384-bit memory bus, unlike the regular GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X that has a 320-bit wide memory bus. This means that you will be getting 20% more memory bandwidth, which might provide for an interesting performance boost.

The CUDA core count has also been bumped up slightly, with the newer GeForce RTX 3080 12GB packing 8960 CUDA cores, versus the GeForce RTX 3080 10GB’s 8704. This also means that you will be getting two extra SMs worth of Tensor and RT cores as well, which will give the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB a total of 280 Tensor cores and 70 RT cores.

The extra memory and slightly larger GPU seems to have contributed to the power consumption, as NVIDIA has apparently kept the GPU clocks the same. The GeForce RTX 3080 12GB is designed with a TGP of 350W, which is the same as the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and 30W higher than the GeForce RTX 3080 10GB’s 320W TGP.

And the thing that everyone wants to know the most: pricing and availability. Unfortunately while NVIDIA did announce that the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB is now available, NVIDIA is not making any Founders Edition cards. This also means that we will most probably not see any cards at MSRP. Stay tuned to find out more about how NVIDIA’s partners are pricing the card!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12GB GDDR6X Specs