The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is coming, but it will only have 12GB of video memory instead of the originally planned 20GB.

This is suggested by a Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) submission (discovered by regular leaker Komachi) from longtime Nvidia board partner Gigabyte. The submission lists a number of models that are clearly RTX 3080 Ti, and all appear to have product codes indicating 12GB of memory (presumably GDDR6X). This is in direct contrast to Gigabyte's similar submission last year, which listed the same model with 20GB. [For example, last year's submission included the "GV-N308TAORUSX W-20GD," presumably the RTX 3080 Ti equivalent of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Aorus Xtreme 10G graphics card. The GV-N308TAORUS X-12GD is now listed, but note the change from "20GD" to "12GD". This pattern is repeated in other listed cards across both submissions.

This lends credence to the rumor that the RTX 3080 Ti was originally planned to be released with 20GB of video memory before Nvidia decided to change to 12GB.

Additionally, one Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 owner recently opened his card to find it using the chip model that was first rumored to be part of the RTX 3080 Ti. This suggests that Nvidia discarded the original chip for the unreleased card and repurposed it to increase the supply of RTX 3090s, switching to a new chip that should support 12GB of memory instead of 20GB.

This gigabyte submission should not necessarily be taken as a list of finished products. The 20GB model in last year's submission obviously never made it to market. However, it is increasingly likely that Nvidia has reduced the VRAM in its upcoming high-end GPUs.

Still, would it be so bad, 12GB is still more than enough for high-resolution gaming, and if it gets more graphics cards out of the factory, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Almost all of the current generation GPUs have been sold out for months now, except for the occasional limited restocking.

So if you can't find a place to buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and don't want to spend $1499 (minimum price) for an RTX 3090, it may still be worth waiting to see what happens with the RTX 3080 Ti.