NVIDIA Repurposing Scrapped RTX 3080 Ti GA102-250 GPUs to GA102-300 for RTX 3090 | TechPowerUp
 
The NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti has experienced numerous delays with the card's launch most recently being pushed to mid-May. The unreleased RTX 3080 Ti has gone through various internal revisions with the card expected to use a GA102-250 GPU until plans were scrapped in late January. The RTX 3080 Ti is now expected to feature the GA102-225 GPU instead when it finally releases. NVIDIA having already produced the required processors is now repurposing the GA102-250 GPUs slated for the RTX 3080 Ti for use in RTX 3090 Founders Edition cards. This switch makes sense as the GA102-250 was rumored to feature the same number of cores as the RTX 3090 just with a smaller memory size. NVIDIA appears to have now enabled the full 384-bit memory bus and has laser engraved the chips to show their change to GA102-300's.
 
I personally feel there are a lot of unanswered questions here. Why the chip change?

Im assuming they were full chips with some cores disabled and labeled so people would not try to unlock them
 
Intel does that with microcode on it's cpu's
 
 
this is usually normal - use good chips and disable features - you do that when you don't have enough supply of the lower sku and you don't have enough demand of higher SKU
 
the opposite is true here - they have higher demand than normal for the highest SKU and have more avail of the lower label chip 
even there is a shortage of all SKU's there is probably more shortage on the top end
 
 

rjohnson11
NVIDIA Repurposing Scrapped RTX 3080 Ti GA102-250 GPUs to GA102-300 for RTX 3090 | TechPowerUp
 
The NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti has experienced numerous delays with the card's launch most recently being pushed to mid-May. The unreleased RTX 3080 Ti has gone through various internal revisions with the card expected to use a GA102-250 GPU until plans were scrapped in late January. The RTX 3080 Ti is now expected to feature the GA102-225 GPU instead when it finally releases. NVIDIA having already produced the required processors is now repurposing the GA102-250 GPUs slated for the RTX 3080 Ti for use in RTX 3090 Founders Edition cards. This switch makes sense as the GA102-250 was rumored to feature the same number of cores as the RTX 3090 just with a smaller memory size. NVIDIA appears to have now enabled the full 384-bit memory bus and has laser engraved the chips to show their change to GA102-300's.
 
I personally feel there are a lot of unanswered questions here. Why the chip change?

 

Sajin
This is nuts. Lower end chips being used in founders edition cards now because of the chip shortage? 👎

The 3090 being the true 3080 ti is already bad enough.

 
Nvidia has not disappoint........ of proving me right.

the 3080ti Chips have the same cuda core counts to make it then be restamped as a 3090
otherwise there would be false advertising related to using a gou with less cuda cores in an advertised sku that offers more cuda vores - that would be fraud
 
my guess is they just binned good 3090's with higher clock for 3080ti and then labeled them as lower binned item (model) and just made a microcode change that gimped the cores
basically a better binned 3090 used as a 3080ti with cores disabled
 
now the problem this lead to they have a shortage of 3090's they want to address - because of the backlog and now repurposing the lower labeled chips back to a 4090 and re-enabling the disabled cores
 
for months we been hearing different core counts for the 3080ti -  im wondering if it's always going to be a 3090 chip with a microcode change 
meaning if someone could write/mpd Vbios changes (can't because NVidia - encrypted bios's now) you could unlock those cores with a microcode change somehow
 

what im saying the chip did have the same core count but they disabled some with microcode
its the same bloody chip (better binned mind you) with a some cores disabled
 
thats the basis for the story - moving 3080ti chips back to 3090 chips and restamping them 
read the story please
 
3080ti will have less core count on the card = but the chip has all the cores on it - just some disabled for 3080ti
they have to re-enable them to put them back to use as 3090 or face a heavy lawsuit if they offer less cores when they advertise the full core count
 

Xavier Zepherious
what im saying the chip did have the same core count but they disabled some with microcode
its the same bloody chip (better binned mind you) with a some cores disabled
 
thats the basis for the story - moving 3080ti chips back to 3090 chips and restamping them 
read the story please
 
3080ti will have less core count on the card = but the chip has all the cores on it - just some disabled for 3080ti
they have to re-enable them to put them back to use as 3090 or face a heavy lawsuit if they offer less cores when they advertise the full core count
 

How do we know it's better binned? Based on the rumours, its clocks will be lower than the 3090. These may end up going in low end 3090s not in the OC AIBs.

undecided65

Xavier Zepherious
what im saying the chip did have the same core count but they disabled some with microcode
its the same bloody chip (better binned mind you) with a some cores disabled
 
thats the basis for the story - moving 3080ti chips back to 3090 chips and restamping them 
read the story please
 
3080ti will have less core count on the card = but the chip has all the cores on it - just some disabled for 3080ti
they have to re-enable them to put them back to use as 3090 or face a heavy lawsuit if they offer less cores when they advertise the full core count
 

How do we know it's better binned? Based on the rumours, its clocks will be lower than the 3090. These may end up going in low end 3090s not in the OC AIBs.

 
Probably right.

Xavier Zepherious
3080ti is suppose to have higher clocks than the 3090
that usually means better binned chips

I would guess they are able to do that because of the disabled parts and thermals permitting.

3090 Kingpin hydro copper came with ga102-250

im not surprised..
not shocked..
it was expected..
binned chips... and that's the secret!always was i guess
as long people know exactly how much gfx performance they are paying.. i see no problem here no matter the commercial name they give their product.