Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB and 12 GB specifications confirmed by new leak

A previous leak speculated that Nvidia would launch two variants of the GeForce RTX 4080, one with 12 GB of VRAM and the other with 16 GB. It seemed a little suspicious initially given the fiasco with the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB and 10 GB variants. However, renowned leaker Kopite7kimi, who has had an excellent track record with all Nvidia-related material, has now essentially confirmed the aforementioned information. The leaker adds that "his work is done", implying that these specs are final.

Over the past few weeks, the GeForce RTX 4080's rumoured specs have changed quite a bit. In the end, Kopite7kimi concluded that it would pack 16 GB of 23 Gbps GDDR6X VRAM for a total memory bandwidth of 736 GB/s. It packs an AD103-300 GPU with 9,728 CUDA cores and has a TGP of 350 Watts. A leak from earlier pegged its boost clock to be set at 2,505 MHz. The Geforce RTX 4080 12 GB is expected to downgrade the memory modules to 21 Gbps and the bus width to 192-bit, thereby reducing the total memory bandwidth to 504 GB/s. Other specs include an AD104-400 GPU with 7,680 CUDA cores and a 285 Watt TGP. It tries to make up for the lacklustre specs with a higher boost clock of 2,610 MHz.

It is hard to estimate how Nvidia plans to price the GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB and 12 GB variants. One can expect the former to cost around US$800 (or more) given that it is the "true" xx80 class graphics card from this generation. The GeForce RTX 4080 12 GB will likely bear a price tag of US$600/700; about as much as a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Initial leaks did, after all, speculate that an SKU with similar specs would be launched as the GeForce RTX 4070/4070 Ti.

Nvidia's decision to fragment its high-end graphics card segment might come off as a bit anti-consumer to many, as the company is essentially pushing a repackaged xx70 class graphics card as a xx80 tier model. That ensuing PR nightmare could be abated a little if Ada Lovelace performs as rumoured. Previous estimates pegged the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (aka the GeForce RTX 4080 12 GB) to trade blows with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. Similarly, the "real" GeForce RTX 4080 might out-edge the GeForce RTX 3090 by 50%.

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