RTX 3070 Ti version soon get a major memory upgrade
According to the most recent leak regarding Team Green’s graphics cards, Nvidia may be working on a new version of the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. A Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC graphics card with 16GB of VRAM is listed under the name “GV-N307T GAMING OC ST-16GD” among a number of listings for other cards, mostly existing versions, although there may be a twist on that; we’ll get to that later. As you may be aware, the RTX 3070 Ti version that is now available only has 8GB of video RAM, which is the same as the RTX 3070, so this potential graphics card update would double that, providing a significant memory improvement. It’s interesting to note that Gigabyte already submitted a 16GB RTX 3070 Ti variant to the EEC at the beginning of the year.
The most recent report also advanced the idea that Nvidia is preparing an RTX 3060 with 8GB of VRAM in addition to an RTX 3070 Ti model (rather than 12GB). Now, this alleged refresh is not depicted in Gigabyte’s EEC file; instead, a new 3060 card is listed, although it still has 12GB. Make of that what you will, but a new RTX 3060 Ti model is listed here, and there were also rumors of an RTX 3060 Ti with faster GDDR6X memory, which in this case would be 8GB, the usual memory loadout with the current graphics card. Therefore, it’s possible that this version has the aforementioned revved-up VRAM.
In the end, we can’t tell for sure about anything, but what we can say is that speculation is growing more and more likely to suggest that Nvidia will release at least one or two updated models of its current Ampere graphics cards (possibly as soon as next month). Team Green has stated that it plans to stack current-gen products with next-gen, so this would appear to be a part of the company’s larger near-term GPU deployment strategy. It also makes sense that the RTX 3070 and 3060 would be the layered refreshes to hold things over until their Lovelace successors arrive, which may not be until 2023, since high-end RTX 4000 graphics cards would likely come first, the RTX 4090 and 4080.
The RTX 4060 isn’t anticipated until next year, and based on what we’ve heard so far, we’re beginning to believe the same may be true with the RTX 4070 as well. Nvidia is reportedly considering releasing two very different RTX 4080 variants, one of which could theoretically replace the 4070. That would be a strange decision, to be sure, but we won’t have to wait long to find out whether it’s real because Nvidia’s major unveiling for its upcoming Lovelace GPUs is just a few days away.