Nvidia's Unreleased RTX 3080 Ti 20GB Founders Edition Prototype Auctioned on eBay for $1,999
In an unconventional turn of events on eBay, a mysterious Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition emerged, boasting an unheard-of 20GB of VRAM. This engineering sample somehow slipped through the cracks and hit the auction block – a rarity in the Ampere era.
According to the listing, bidding concluded at $1,999, which is pretty jaw-dropping for a 2nd-gen high-end graphics card. The seller provided photos of the GPU, showcasing the original packaging box, a bright green "Not for sale, for development only" sticker on the GPU, and a fully functional, excellent condition unit.
Although this card never officially graced the retail shelves, it can still be used for gaming or 3D workloads through third-party drivers like Nvidia-patcher, due to the lack of official drivers for this model. However, the potential for poor or unstable performance remains uncertain.
The standard RTX 3080 Ti made its grand entrance in June 2021 with a $1,199 starting price and 12GB of GDDR6X memory. Essentially a scaled-down RTX 3090, it offered higher specifications and performance compared to the RTX 3080, attracted by the allure of increased VRAM and raw power.
Whispers of a 20GB RTX 3080 Ti arose back in December 2020, following a Gigabyte EEC listing disclosing several RTX 3080 Ti 20GB models. This was soon followed by a leaked firmware uploaded to TechPowerUp, specifically designed for Gigabyte's range of RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs.
In September 2021, a cryptocurrency miner out of Russia stumbled upon physically available Gigabyte branded RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs, selling for prices ranging from $2,733 to $2,837. This rare find, a Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Xtreme (GV-N308TAORUS X-20GD), came from HARDVAR, a retail store in Saint Petersburg. At the time of posting, the GPU was tagged at a staggering $3,067.
Along with the increased capacity of 20GB, the 20GB variant also came with a 320-bit memory bus. Despite the lower memory bandwidth of 760 GBps compared to the 12GB variant's 912 GBps, it certainly turned heads in the graphics card enthusiast community back then.
The 20GB RTX 3080 Ti seems to have been developed to combat AMD's high-VRAM offerings. Perhaps it aimed to cater to enthusiasts who prioritized memory capacity for gaming, crypto mining, or creative workloads. Regrettably, Nvidia apparently abandoned this project – leaving this unusual GPU as a fascinating "what-if" in the Ampere era, a tantalizing glimpse at what could have been.
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The intriguing 20GB RTX 3080 Ti, an engineering sample that never officially hit the market, could potentially be utilized with third-party drivers for gaming or 3D workloads despite the lack of official drivers. This unconventional GPU, featuring a 320-bit memory bus, was rumored to have been developed as a countermeasure to AMD's high-VRAM offerings, catering to enthusiasts prioritizing memory capacity for applications like gaming, cryptocurrency mining, or creative workloads.
