Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 leaked pic hints at a GPU with the mother of all heatsinks

(Image credit: Future)

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 has popped up in leaked images once again, although obviously bear in mind that we can’t be sure this is actually the real incoming next-gen graphics card – but given that the images fit with the previous leak, it’s starting to look more likely that the rumor mill might have things right.

The latest snap has been shared on Reddit, and the source (a certain ‘LeeJiangLee’) isn’t a known one. However, what’s going in favor of this leak is that the image shows underneath the shroud and the exposed heatsink (plus cooling pipes), and it looks to be pretty much an exact fit compared with the previous pics which were spilled.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 leak

(Image credit: LeeJiangLee (Reddit))

In that respect, the image would seem to add to the evidence that this is indeed the new design for the RTX 3080 – evidence which also includes a major leak from Igor’s Lab on the spec of the graphics card (and other top-end Ampere models which may include an alleged RTX 3090) whose sources also insisted that this is indeed the new look Nvidia is going for with the Founders Edition.

Still, we obviously need to be very careful about leaping to anything that feels like a firm conclusion here.

On track?

Naturally, there are lots of airy potential conclusions which can be drawn, though, including that this is starting to look like a finished product, and so Nvidia may just be on track for that rumored September release date (and a potential face-off against AMD’s Big Navi).

As we’ve discussed before, the sheer size and beefiness of this cooling solution also backs up speculation around Nvidia’s next-gen graphics cards being quite the power guzzlers, with TDPs purportedly reaching 350W for the top-end model, while the RTX 3080 will allegedly demand 320W from your power supply.

If these cooling solution and power usage leaks turn out to be on the money, or at least near it, while the GPU might stay suitably cool with Nvidia’s purported new design, the worry could be around noise levels, and the potential racket that such a graphics card might make with demanding games at full load.

Again, though, we’re getting ahead of ourselves with the speculation really, but if a launch is on track for a few months’ time, at least we don’t have very long to wait to find out the truth behind Nvidia’s Ampere graphics cards.

Via PC Gamer

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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