With the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti behind us, it looks like NVIDIA might be planning to play its cards differently with the cheaper RTX 3060’s launch. A new leak from Igor’s lab points to the RTX 3060 being prepared for a GTX 1060-esque launch, where the card will come in 2 different VRAM configurations.
With both AMD and NVIDIA having released their expensive flagship GPUs for the year, it looks like budget gamers are about to get their wishes fulfilled. While both the Big Navi and Ampere flagships are well made graphics cards, neither of the companies’ offerings are currently appealing to gamers on a budget. The RTX 3060 Ti, which launched earlier this month, was the first entry into cheap next-generation PC gaming. While we wait for AMD to counter that card with its Radeon RX 6700 series, NVIDIA is planning to keep multiple cards ready for launch throughout Q1 2021.
GeForce RTX 3060 to come with 6 GB and 12 GB configurations
According to Igor, the RTX 3060 will be unveiled at CES 2021, specifically the 12 GB version. Countering previous reports, it looks like NVIDIA will be renaming the alleged RTX 3050 Ti to the RTX 3060, as it wants the “RTX” brand to start with the 60 series, for whatever reason.
This would be a slightly confusing move since the previous RTX 2060 Super came with 8 GB of memory. While the original RTX 2060 had 6 GB, there are good reasons for why it was replaced by the Super variant. Games at 1080p are reaching 6 GB VRAM limit pretty quickly, and when playing at 1440p it’s pretty much a given, which is what the 60 series cards are meant for. However, we should also note that the GTX 1060 3GB was actually cut from a different GPU die, making it a different card from the actual GTX 1060 which had 6 GB memory. It looks like the same will be true of the RTX 3060, but only time will tell what becomes of it.
RTX 3080 Ti coming later in 2021 with 20 GB VRAM
In the same report, it is mentioned that the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will be released later next year. It looks like NVIDIA patiently waited to see how team red’s RX 6000 series in action, and wanted to see how important the 16 GB VRAM config in all of AMD’s cards were for consumers. This has recently been a hot topic for debate since the RTX 3080 only has 10 GB of memory. Regardless, while the RTX 3080 does beat the RX 6800 XT in games, its lower amount of allocated memory can become a bottleneck for future-proofing.
This is why the RTX 3080 Ti will be coming with a hefty 20 GB of VRAM, which should be plenty for next-gen games.