Unreleased Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti 20GB Founders Edition engineering sample sells for $1,999 on eBay
A rare engineering sample of the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition with 20GB of VRAM was recently sold in an auction on eBay. This specific variant never managed to reach retail, thus making it one of the most unusual Ampere-era GPUs to surface online. According to the listing, the auction concluded with the buyer offering $1,999, which is pretty wild for a high-end graphics card that is two-generations old.
The seller included photos of the GPU, showing the original packaging box and a bright green sticker on the GPU that reads, 'Not for sale, for development only.' The seller also confirmed that the unit is in excellent condition and fully functional. However, since it is not a retail product, running games or any 3D workloads would require the use of a third-party driver such as Nvidia-patcher, as there are no official drivers available for this card. This could potentially translate to poor or unstable performance, although that remains unconfirmed.
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The retail version of the RTX 3080 Ti made its official debut in June 2021 with a starting price of $1,199. It featured 12GB of GDDR6X memory and was essentially an RTX 3090 with half the VRAM and a smaller cooling solution. Introduced midway through Nvidia's regular product cycle, it offered higher specifications and performance compared to the RTX 3080.
The first rumors of a 20GB RTX 3080 Ti sparked back in December 2020 when a Gigabyte EEC listing revealed several RTX 3080 Ti 20GB models. This was followed by a firmware anonymously uploaded to TechPowerUp, meant specifically for Gigabyte's range of RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs.
Eventually, in September 2021, a few months after the official launch of the RTX 3080 Ti, a cryptocurrency miner revealed in a YouTube video that retailers in Russia were selling Gigabyte branded RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs ranging from $2,733 to $2,837. The individual managed to get hold of a rare Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Xtreme (GV-N308TAORUS X-20GD), which was purchased from HARDVAR, a retail store in Saint Petersburg. At the time of posting the video, the GPU was priced at $3,067.
The video also revealed that the only difference between the two GeForce RTX 3080 Ti models was the memory capacity. The 20GB variant offered a 67% increase in GDDR6X memory compared to the standard 12GB version. However, the higher memory model came with a narrower 320-bit memory bus instead of 384-bit. As a result, the 20GB model had lower memory bandwidth of 760 GBps compared to 912 GBps on the 12GB version.
It is possible that the RTX 3080 Ti 20GB was planned as a counter to AMD's high-VRAM Radeon offerings at the time. Perhaps it was intended to target users who prioritized memory capacity for gaming, crypto, or creative workloads. Whether Nvidia changed its mind due to production constraints, shifting strategy, or overlapping performance tiers, this unreleased GPU will likely go on to become a "what-if" in Nvidia's Ampere lineup. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
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