The latest information on Team Green’s graphics cards suggests that Nvidia may be working on a variant of the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti.
A new RTX 3070 Ti variant was identified by Wccftech, who highlighted the tweet by notable leaker @harukaze5719 on Twitter. This variation was listed by Gigabyte with the EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission).
GV-N307TGAMING OC ST-16GD
GV-N307TGAMING OC ST-8GD
GV-N3070GAMING OC ST-8GD
GV-N306TGAMING OC ST-8GD
GV-N3060GAMING OC ST-12GDhttps://t.co/YaZRx1VrPo— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) September 17, 2022
In addition to other cards, most of which are readily accessible right now, Gigabyte also lists their RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC (model number: GV-N307T GAMING OC ST-16GD) with 16GB of VRAM. However, there may be a twist; more on that in a bit.
You may be aware that the current iteration of the RTX 3070 Ti has only 8GB of video RAM, the same as the RTX 3070, so this potential graphics card refresh is doubling that up, a significant memory improvement.
Curiously, Gigabyte has already submitted a 16GB version of the RTX 3070 Ti to the EEC, and that was back at the beginning of the year. Obviously, it didn’t happen, but it seems like the original concept might be making a comeback…
Signs Nvidia’s ‘layering’ method may work?
Given the history of the EEC file, we have good reason to be wary of any such leaks. Although showing off a graphics card model at the EEC is sometimes a precursor to the product’s eventual release, there is no guarantee that it will ever make it to shelves. As we witnessed with Gigabyte’s previous 3070 Ti 16GB, the company occasionally makes speculative filings with the organization, placeholder listings that don’t come to fruition.
That doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, though; the key “but” here is that we’ve heard rumours of an RTX 3070 Ti refresh that utilises the GA102 GPU (the more powerful chip that powers the RTX 3080 and 3090) rather than the GA104 GPU found in the current RTX 3070 Ti.
And when rumours corroborate one another like this, they earn some credence – but we’re still being very cautious about this one. An additional point to remember is that the prior rumour says the RTX 3070 Ti’s latest iteration may be available only in certain regions (China maybe). There was no mention of increasing the VRAM in the last leak, either (though we could even get a version with doubled VRAM and that new GA102 chip).
Moreover, the recent report suggested that Nvidia is preparing an RTX 3060 with 8GB of VRAM in addition to an RTX 3070 Ti edition (rather than 12GB). Gigabyte, however, has not yet updated its EEC file to reflect this rumoured upgrade; instead, it just shows a new 3060 card that comes with the same 12GB of memory. Take that for what it’s worth, but there was also rumour of a new RTX 3060 Ti model with faster GDDR6X memory (8GB, the normal loadout with the current graphics card).
Conclusion
The truth is, we have no idea what Nvidia has in store for us, but speculations are mounting that the company will release at least a few of updated versions of its current Ampere graphics cards (possibly as soon as next month).
Team Green has stated that it plans to stack current-gen solutions with next-gen GPUs, so this move would seem to be part of the company’s long-term GPU rollout strategy. Layered updates to the RTX 3070 and 3060 would make sense as high-end RTX 4000 graphics cards (likely the RTX 4090 and 4080) arrive first, allowing for continued use until the Lovelace successors arrive, which may not happen until 2023 at the earliest.
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Nvidia may delay the sale of the RTX 4060 and 4070 until next year because it plans to introduce two versions of the RTX 4080, one of which may replace the 4070. A bit of a strange strategy, to be sure, but we shouldn’t have to wait long to find out whether it’s real; Nvidia’s major unveiling for next-gen Lovelace GPUs is coming up in just a couple of days.