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Nvidia might be working on the RTX 3080 Super, but there’s a catch

Jacob Roach
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A new rumor suggests Nvidia might be working on the RTX 3080 Super and RTX 3070 Super for laptops. The rumor falls in line with a leaked roadmap from Lenovo last month, which listed the upcoming ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 sporting either an RTX 3080 Super or RTX 3070 Super. We may know the names of the cards, but that’s about it.

The rumor comes from Videocardz, who spotted a tweet from Greymon55 saying that the range is set to launch next year. The Twitter account was only set up this month, but it has already caught the attention of some well-known leakers.

Doom Eternal running on a Razer Blade Stealth laptop.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The tweet alone doesn’t say much, but the Lenovo leak lends it some creditability. The original leak shows that you can configure the X1 Extreme Gen 4 with an Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti, RTX 3060, RTX 3070 Super, or RTX 3080 Super. Meanwhile, Lenovo’s X1 Extreme Gen 4 product page lists the RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060, or RTX 3050 Ti as graphics options in the upcoming machine.

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The RTX 3080 Super and RTX 3070 Super will allegedly come with 16GB and 8GB of GDDR6 memory, respectively. That’s the only spec we know about, but these Super variants, if they exist, will likely come with more CUDA cores. The RTX 2080 Super mobile, for example, came with 128 more CUDA cores than the RTX 2080 mobile. The cards will likely use the same Ampere architecture, but they could come with a redesigned GPU core.

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Looking at last-gen’s launch cadence, it’s possible that Nvidia could announce Super variants in late 2021 or early 2022. The RTX 2080 mobile released in January 2019, and the RTX 2080 Super followed in April 2020. Similarly, the RTX 3080 mobile was announced in January 2021, putting the RTX 3080 Super mobile on track for an early 2022 release.

Nvidia hasn’t announced or hinted at anything at this point, though, and it’s still too soon to say these cards are coming. Last year, Nvidia was apparently working on a 20GB version of the RTX 3080 Ti and a 16GB version of the RTX 3070 Ti, both of which never made it to market. The cards were reportedly canceled to make way for the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti that are available today.

If previous launches are anything to go by, Nvidia is likely working on an update to its mobile RTX 30-series range. However, it’s possible that the design will be reworked, rebranded, or completely scrapped before next year rolls around.

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Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
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