Nvidia recently unveiled the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, its latest flagship gaming video card at the Computex 2021 event. A significant upgrade to the original RTX 3080 counterpart, the RTX 3080 Ti is more aligned with the powerful specs of the RTX 3090. With 12GB of VRAM alongside ray-tracing and DLSS capabilities, the RTX 3080 Ti is a strong card for 4K gaming.
The Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti falls between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 in terms of performance and it seems to be marketed as a cheaper alternative for enthusiasts who might find the RTX 3090 to be overkill. With a MSRP of $1199 USD, the RTX 3080 Ti is a solid upgrade for most PC users should they be able to find the GPU at around market price.
Nvidia RTX 3080 Vs. Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti
For the most part, the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti is a fairly substantial upgrade to its original Nvidia RTX 3080 counterpart. The most noticeable differences are in the increased number of CUDA cores and VRAM. While the RTX 3080 has 8704 CUDA cores and 10GB of VRAM, the RTX 3080 Ti has 10240 CUDA cores and 12GB of VRAM. Coming in at $1199 USD compared to the $699 USD of the RTX 3080, the RTX 3080 Ti isn't intended to act as a replacement for the original RTX 3080.
The RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti Founders Editions both have the same physical design as they share the same size and cooler. The only minor difference in design is that the RTX 3080 pulls 30W more of board power. Beyond that however, the RTX 3080 Ti is designed to be more of a competitor with the RTX 3090 and as a result, doesn't share as many similarities with the original RTX 3080 as the name might imply.
Nvidia RTX 3090 Vs. Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti
On the other hand, the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti has more similarities to the RTX 3090 given its position in Nvidia's 3000 series of GPUs. While the Nvidia RTX 3090 has 24GB of VRAM and 10496 CUDA cores, the difference between the two is relatively small. Similar to previous high-end GPUs of past generations, the performance difference between the two cards are only around 10%. Though the RTX 3080 Ti has half the memory of the RTX 3090, the memory bandwidth is quite similar between the two GPUs.
The price tag for the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti is also a little cheaper than the Nvidia RTX 3090's price of $1499. As expected of the high-end cards, enthusiasts are really only paying for a small performance upgrade in the price difference. As a result, the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti is perfectly suited for people looking to get solid performance in 4K gaming so long as they don't use up the 12GB of VRAM. Of course, this is all based on the Founders Edition cards and Nvidia's board partners will also offer enthusiasts different options for overclocking later on.
For now though, the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti seems to act as a middle ground between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 although it leans more towards the RTX 3090. At the price of $1199, it covers the essential requirements for comfortable 4K gaming and Nvidia's hash-rate limiter should hopefully place more of these cards into the hands of gamers. However, given the current semiconductor shortage, it's likely that fans will have difficulty grabbing the RTX 3080 Ti at a reasonable price.