Nvidia could be readying an RTX 3080 Ti laptop graphics card if the rumor mill is to be believed.
Speculation about higher-end notebook GPUs from Nvidia has been flying around for quite some time now, although previous leaks from a few months or so back pointed to the possibility of an RTX 3080 Super model (plus 3070 Super for that matter).
This fresh spillage has pinned the Ti label, rather than Super branding, on the purportedly incoming RTX 3080 variant, with the theory being that this product will be based on Nvidia’s GA103 GPU (GN20-E8), as noted in a tweet from Matthew Smith which VideoCardz spotted (Smith is the keeper of TechPowerUp’s GPU database).
it seems the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile will use the GA103 chip.October 30, 2021
The leak, as VideoCardz explains, actually originates from somebody posting on a PCI Device ID database with the handle ‘Faintsnow’ who is presumed to work for a graphics card maker. Faintsnow added the details of the GPU and confirmed that it’ll be the ‘GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU’ when questioned on what Nvidia’s name for this graphics solution would be.
No other details are provided here, so the info imparted is admittedly thin on the ground.
Analysis: Some kind of high-end laptop GPU inbound for early 2022?
Obviously, we need to keep a healthy sense of skepticism about the veracity of this, as that original source is a murky one, really.
That said, this is a rumor which has been kicking around for a while, and it does seem a likely move for Nvidia to release a laptop GPU with more oomph in the near-ish future – previously the grapevine has held that this mobile graphics card (or cards) could be unveiled early in 2022. Meaning we might be looking at a CES launch in January 2022, and if that is the case, we’d expect to be hearing a lot more from the rumor mill on this GPU in short order.
There has been some controversy in the past about whether the supposed RTX 3080 Ti or Super might step up from the GA104 employed in the notebook RTX 3080 card to use the GA103 as indicated here, because as you may recall regular rumor peddler Kopite7kimi – who first spilled the goods on the GA103 laptop chip – said at one point that it was quite likely canceled.
Kopite7kimi chimed in with this latest leak, as well, speculating that maybe this new discovery could even be an RTX 3090 mobile, not a 3080 Ti. On the naming front, it should be noted that Nvidia has never used the Ti suffix for a mobile GPU, so there’s that to bear in mind too when it comes to the name guessing game.
Whatever it ends up being called, the possibility that Nvidia still has a more powerful high-end laptop GPU in the wings, waiting to step up and become the new flagship for Ampere in gaming notebooks, is definitely still alive.
