NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB Graphics Card Is Real & Being Sold in China For Less Than $600 US
Eventually, it was confirmed to be real by Gigabyte’s sub-brand AORUS to be the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB GDDR6X. Before the listing and pictures from Russian retailer ZSCOM, the card was heavily discussed but was reported as canceled. Outside of the model that made it to Russia, no other discussion afterward was brought to light. Even more recently, we saw an unreleased RTX 3090 SUPER graphics card which shows that many of the configurations that were leaked or have been rumored do indeed get made by GPU manufacturers but never entered mass production. This is done to make sure that the company has some sort of quantity at launch when NVIDIA gives the go-ahead because VRAM capabilities are something that AICs can adjust but the internal GPU configuration is something that only NVIDIA can change. Now, a Chinese retailer has begun selling an MSI variant of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20GB which is a dramatic reduction (compared to GPUs from a few years back), retailing for less than $600. Over the last several years, crypto miners have been utilizing NVIDIA GPUs for their crypto mining rigs as they were the most effective GPU to access consistent hash rates compared to other companies GPUs with many features locked. However, with the Ethereum currency planning to switch to a new format for mining, eliminating the use of the NVIDIA GPUs, miners are looking to other currencies or selling their stressed GPUs and rigs for a fraction of the cost to receive close to their return on investment, or ROI. In an exciting turn of events, some mining farms have had full access to the unreleased NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB GPU. We are seeing photos of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC 20 GB model via social media, which should not be confused with the Russian version we saw last year. NVIDIA initially discussed with board partners the possibilities of releasing 10 GB, 12 GB, and 20 GB GPUs, as well as LHR variants. The 10 and 12 GB models were the only ones to reach the market, so it was safe to assume that no other cards existed. NVIDIA never fully confirmed the existence of a 20 GB GPU, so the listings from China and Russia were all GPUs that the tech community felt were never released and canceled down the line. The photo from the Chinese retailer shows a GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB GPU with the standard plugs used for the display connector, which does not assist with crypto mining. It is rumored that MSI directly sold the GPUs to miners and not the everyday consumer, as the cards could access 97.48 MH/s rates, which would determine that NVIDIA enabled the LHR block on the GPU. Right now is a terrible time to buy this particular card as ETH mining is going through a dramatic change that will alter the crypto mining scene in the future. Also, NVIDIA is planning to reveal the newest GPUs to be sold in the coming months. Lastly, the cards have no available drivers, meaning they would only be fully effectively mine and not utilized for gaming. Twitter user @honxxing2020 showed the MSI RTX 3080 20 GB GPUs available between $432 to $600 and appeared to be a brand new card. But, with the lack of functionality, is it worth spending the money on this GPU now in the marketplace? News Sources: VideoCardz, @honxxing2020 on Twitter
