Nvidia RTX 3050 and RTX 3080 Ti just leaked — here's what to expect

News
By Alan Martin
published

A new leak suggests that a whole load of new Nvidia RTX 30 GPUs are incoming

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
(Image credit: Nvidia)

If you’re on the fence about Nvidia’s current batch of RTX 30 GPUs — or more likely, can’t find stock given the shortages — then you may be interested to know that it looks like the company has more models up its sleeve.

The news comes via the AIDA64 benchmarking tool, which has been pretty good at surfacing unannounced GPUs in the past. The intriguing list, captured below by @Komachi_Ensaka on Twitter, not only mentions a RTX 3050 and previously rumored RTX 3080 Ti, but includes a number of laptop-friendly mobile variants of existing RTX 30 hardware. 

For price-sensitive buyers, the RTX 3050 will be the real prize in the list. RTX 30-series graphics cards currently start at $399 for the RTX 3060 Ti, so the existence of a cheaper member of the family is certainly appealing. The leak indicates it will be built around the GA107 chip, so you can expect a hit in performance, but it’s likely that the general improvements found in the Ampere architecture would still provide a shot in the arm for most desktop setups. 

The RTX 3080 Ti, meanwhile, is very much the opposite end of the market. Built on Nvidia’s GA102 chip, it’s rumored to come with 20GB of VRAM, making it a GPU aimed squarely at those who want big performance and have budgets to match. You can expect it to fall somewhere between the RTX 3080 ($699) and RTX 3090 ($1,499) in price, and compete with the Radeon RX 6900 XT in terms of performance.

Then there are the mobile offerings: the RTX 3070 and 3060 Mobile chips, built on GA104M and GA106M GPUs. The M very likely stands for ‘mobile’ indicating a bespoke setup that’ll very likely have a lesser core specification than their desktop equivalents. That’s not to play them down: the best gaming laptops with RTX 20 series GPUs are capable of impressive performance even when ray tracing, so any improvement on that will be massively appealing to those with one eye on a new gaming laptop in the new year. 

The desktop GPUs are strongly rumored for January 2021, but there has been no indication of when the laptop versions will see the light of day. Whenever it is, if you fancy any of Nvidia’s new hardware, expect a fight on your hands: "shortages" has been the watchword of RTX 30 to date, and that looks set to carry on well into the new year. 

Alan Martin
Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.