We just got another round of leaks surrounding the rumored Nvidia RTX 40 Super lineup. This time, the sources speak about the amount of memory these new GPUs might serve up. Nvidia may be making progress toward rivaling some of AMD’s best graphics cards, which typically have a lot more VRAM. But is this upgrade really going to be as significant as some speculate? Not all reputable sources agree.
A third source has just weighed in on the matter of the rumored RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4070 Super. Benchlife cites its own sources at Nvidia’s board partners as it claims that the RTX 4080 Super might come with 20GB of memory, whereas the RTX 4070 Super might be boosted to 16GB. Doing so would definitely require chip changes for both cards. The RTX 4080 Super would now share the same AD102 GPU as the flagship RTX 4090, and the RTX 4070 Super would be bumped up to the AD103 chip found in the RTX 4080.
These are sizable upgrades that we’re talking about here. The RTX 4080 Super would receive 25% extra memory and a wider 320-bit bus. Switching to the AD102 chip also opens up the possibility of an increase in CUDA cores. Overall, this GPU would bridge the gap between the RTX 4080 and the RTX 4090.
The RTX 4070 Super marks an interesting change. If it does switch from the AD104 to the AD103 chip, it might end up with better specs than the RTX 4070 Ti, which runs on AD104 and has 12GB of VRAM across a 192-bit bus. Where does that leave the RTX 4070 Ti Super, if that’s going to be a thing? Most likely also only the AD103 GPU, which makes this a pretty crowded chip. We could end up with three graphics cards where the performance jump from one to the next isn’t that big, although the gap between the RTX 4070 Super and the RTX 4080 should still be significant.
I have some different opinions.
I think the relationship between RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4080 is similar to that between RTX 2080 Super and RTX 2080. https://t.co/LJqKZRISta— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) October 23, 2023
While Benchlife’s report is interesting, well-known leaker kopite7kimi disagrees with these rumors. According to kopite7kimi, the refresh isn’t going to be as big a deal as the previous leaks suggested. This speculation is leaning more toward a minor enhancement that unlocks the full potential of the GPU and boosts memory speed. In fact, kopite7kimi believes that the RTX 4080 Super will max out the AD103 chip instead of being upgraded to AD102, and that change can’t possibly result in any major performance increase. The RTX 4070 Super is said to be a slightly cut-down version of the RTX 4070 Ti.
Seeing as the rumors have been consistent that the new RTX 4080 Super might cost the same as the current RTX 4080 ($1,200), the minor upgrade seems more consistent with what Nvidia usually does. We’ll have to wait and see.
