Nvidia silently launched the 12GB RTX 3080, but there aren't any reviews on launch day. Here's why, and what it means for Nvidia throughout 2022.
Nvidia released a 12GB variant of the RTX 3080 this morning. On Monday, we heard about Nvidia potentially launching this card, but I didn’t pay it much mind — after all, Nvidia just announced two new graphics cards at CES, and it didn’t make sense to further segment an already granular lineup of GPUs.
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For hype, it’s possible that Nvidia left the 12GB RTX 3080 off the CES stage to deter some attention from scalpers. By silently launching it, the hope seems to gather the attention of in-tune gamers who have been searching for graphics cards without broadcasting the release to a drove of bots. Hardware Unboxed shared that Nvidia wouldn’t offer a press driver ahead of launch. Moore’s Law is Dead, a YouTube channel focused on GPU and CPU leaks, also shared that Nvidia wasn’t distributing the driver to anyone. I’ve reached out to Nvidia for clarification, and I’ll update this story when I hear back. But even without official word, the lack of day-one reviews suggests that no one had access to the driver.
Keep in mind that the RTX 3080 launched as a $699 graphics card originally. While $1,249 may not seem too bad given the secondhand prices of 10GB RTX 3080 models, it’s downright insulting to charge such a high premium for such a marginal update. The GPU pricing crisis will wane, but the inflated list price of the 12GB RTX 3080 will remain.