Yeah, I suspect the reason the 3080 has so little RAM (for its time and level) is to add appeal to the next 3080 refresh card.

I don’t know the details of why the 3080 is currently 10GB instead of 12, but the reason for this situation is the VRAM chips only come in one size at least for these first production runs. That forces the situation for now. They are special chips with 4-level bits so the bus seems wider and faster than you would think because each bit carries more data. There’s another word for them too since they are multilevel bits but it slips this old brain.
 
To put more memory on the cards for the 3090 series they had to add an extra set of chips on the back of the card and that forced the 24GB 3090. This was all forced by the very narrow range of chips available. It’s a new kind of memory designed for this application.
 
Micron is coming out with chips in other capacities and that will allow future products to be better tuned with their memory compliment.

Nvidia has marketed the 3090 as an 8k gaming card, which excludes any memory configuration below 16GB.
 
Also, as long as demand exceeds supply, I don't see Nvidia or any AIB releasing a "cheaper" 3090, especially when we already know that a 16GB 3070 and a 20GB 3080 will be released sometime next year.
 
As the spiritual successor to the Titan, the 3090 will probably only have one flavor just like the Titan only had one variant. 

Would have been nice to have 12 GB on the 3080 tho, especially for us 4K gamers. 

ShaconBacon
Are the 2GB that much of a difference for 4k?

It depends on the in-game video settings, but you generally need 8GB to 12GB of VRAM for 4k gaming.

The Nvidia promotional animation of the 3080 shows 12 RAM chips on the 3080.  It was clearly designed to be a 12gb card until late in the process.
 
I think they figured out AMD would have 16gb and decided to switch to 2 SKUS (10 + 20gb) to have both a $700 tier card and a "better" 20gb card.

arent they making a 20gb 3080 as well?

A build with that configuration doesn't seem to make sense. What would be the use case?
 

flyingtoaster85

vegajf51
If all the predictions are correct(they could be wrong) then AMD's flagship RDNA 2 card will slot right between the 3080 and 3090. I am sure Nvidia is ready to have an answer for it.  If AMD has a $999 16GB card that is slightly faster than a 3080 and Nvidia releases a 3080TI for the same price with equal performance which one would you buy...... Nvidia knows what they are doing and are just waiting to show all their cards...literally.

GDDR6X is a Micron/Nvidia exclusive and rumor has it there will be no HBM on the AMD card. That leaves AMD with GDDR6. I predict Big Navi will be slightly faster than a 2080ti.

Don't forget the inevitable price jump when AMD flops again on the GPU side. Feels like we're going to be talking about is the 4080 really worth $1200 compared to the $900 4070 at this rate. 

vegajf51
If all the predictions are correct(they could be wrong) then AMD's flagship RDNA 2 card will slot right between the 3080 and 3090. I am sure Nvidia is ready to have an answer for it.  If AMD has a $999 16GB card that is slightly faster than a 3080 and Nvidia releases a 3080TI for the same price with equal performance which one would you buy...... Nvidia knows what they are doing and are just waiting to show all their cards...literally.

Even though we just got shafted by NVIDIA with this 30 series launch, I would still probably stay with NVIDIA because they have always been reliable for me. I hope AMD makes some huge sales and gives NVIDIA some good competition so we all get better products.

flyingtoaster85

vegajf51
If all the predictions are correct(they could be wrong) then AMD's flagship RDNA 2 card will slot right between the 3080 and 3090. I am sure Nvidia is ready to have an answer for it.  If AMD has a $999 16GB card that is slightly faster than a 3080 and Nvidia releases a 3080TI for the same price with equal performance which one would you buy...... Nvidia knows what they are doing and are just waiting to show all their cards...literally.

GDDR6X is a Micron/Nvidia exclusive and rumor has it there will be no HBM on the AMD card. That leaves AMD with GDDR6. I predict Big Navi will be slightly faster than a 2080ti.

Micon has started that the memory is NOT specific to any one customer:
 
"We now start offering and opening this up to the industry, GDDR6X is not customer-specific," said Ebert. "We expect other customers to have interest moving forward, and then we will also engage with them."
 
Nvidia approached Micron about producing memory with higher bandwidth than GDDR6 (specifically for the 3080 and 3090), and Micron created GDDR6X for them. At this time, the only thing exclusive to Nvidia is the memory controller used for GDDR6X as they developed that in-house. This will also give them a slight lead over AMD, as AMD will have to either wait for a 3rd-party memory controller or develop on of their own. 
 
That said, GDDR6X has not been standardized by JEDEC, which means that it may see some changes and possibly slowing its adoption until it has been standardized. 

arestavo

gimeno

ShaconBacon
Are the 2GB that much of a difference for 4k?

It depends on the in-game video settings, but you generally need 8GB to 12GB of VRAM for 4k gaming.

I've yet to run into VRAM issues gaming at 4K on my 2080 super with 8GB of VRAM. Yes, even the digital foundry found 8GB limitation in Doom Eternal on Ultra Nightmare - I'm not seeing that 20% performance drop (but I run at 2100MHz on the GPU with +1250MHz on the VRAM, and I used the latest 456.38 drivers that they may not have been using).

I based that comment on this:
https://www.techspot.com/article/1770-how-much-ram-pc-gaming/
 
They show about a dozen games using more than 8GB of VRAM at 4k.