Where to buy an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti
Everything you need to know about Nvidia's new flagship GPU
There are two more Nvidia RTX 30 graphics cards on the way this month, the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti. Announced earlier this week as part of Nvidia's Computex 2021 keynote (which is a bit like E3 for hardware nerds), the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti take their place as Nvidia's new flagship gaming GPUs for 2021. Here's everything you need to know, including where you can buy one, what time they go on sale, their prices, specs and respective release dates.
To find out exactly how the RTX 3080 Ti stacks up against the rest of today's best graphics cards, you can read all about it in my full RTX 3080 Ti review. For what it's worth, I think you should stick with the cheaper RTX 3080 if you're looking to buy a new graphics card, as I don't feel the RTX 3080 Ti's performance is good enough to justify its higher price over its vanilla sibling.
RTX 3080 Ti / 3070 Ti release date and price
First things first, the RTX 3080 Ti is launching on June 3rd - that's today! - with prices starting at a whopping £1049 / $1199. That's quite a lot more than the original RTX 3080, which started at £649 / $699, and pretty much puts it slap bang in the middle of the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, which started at $1399 / $1499.
The RTX 3070 Ti, meanwhile, is coming next week on June 10th. This one will be a bit friendlier on the wallet, although with prices set to start at £529 / $599, it's still going to set you back a fair chunk of change. This puts it right in the middle of the MSRPs of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080, with the RTX 3070 costing £100 / $100 less, and the RTX 3080 costing £100 / $100 more.
Where to buy an RTX 3080 Ti / 3070 Ti
If you're determined to try and buy an RTX 3080 Ti when it goes on sale later today, though, then these are the best places to try and grab one. We've just had confirmation from Nvidia that the RTX 3080 Ti will be going on sale at 6am PT / 2pm BST - and it's likely to get snapped up pretty fast.
Below, I've listed the retailers who are currently selling the RTX 3080 Ti as a standalone card in both the UK and US.
Where to buy an RTX 3080 Ti in the UK
Where to buy an RTX 3080 Ti in the US
Acccording to Nvidia, both GPUs will be available to buy in limited edition Nvidia Founders Editions and customised third-party cards on their respective release dates, including stock-clocked and factory-overclocked models from all the usual suspects, such as Asus, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galax, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI, Palit, PNY, Zotac and more. They will also be available to buy as standalone GPUs and as part of pre-built desktop systems.
RTX 3080 Ti / 3070 Ti specs
Now let's get down to some nitty gritty specs. Starting with the RTX 3080 Ti, this will come with 12GB of GDDR6X memory - 2GB up from the 10GB you got on the RTX 3080 - and offer up to 1.5x the performance of the RTX 2080 Ti, according to Nvidia. The other specs Nvidia released during the presentation include 34 shader teraflops, and 67 ray tracing teraflops, and 273 Tensor teraflops, but you can find some more details in the table below so you can see exactly how they stack up to the rest of their RTX 30 siblings.
| Specs | Nvidia RTX 3070 | Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti | Nvidia RTX 3080 | Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti | Nvidia RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 5888 | 6144 | 8704 | 10240 | 10496 |
| Base / Boost Clock | 1.50GHz / 1.73GHz | 1.58GHz / 1.77GHz | 1.44GHz / 1.71GHz | 1.37GHz / 1.67GHz | 1.40GHz / 1.70GHz |
| VRAM | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6X | 10GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Interface Width | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Power | 220W | 290W | 320W | 350W | 350W |
| Recommended PSU Power | 650W | 750W | 750W | 750W | 750W |
| Starting Price | £469 / $499 | £529 / $599 | £649 / $699 | £1049 / $1199 | £1399 / $1499 |
The RTX 3070 Ti, on the other hand, will come with 8GB of GDDR6X memory, which is the same amount as the original RTX 3070, but the key difference here is that it's the faster GDDR6X type you currently find on the RTX 3080 and above, rather than regular GDDR6 memory. In addition to its 22 shader teraflops, 42 ray tracing teraflops and 174 Tensor teraflops, this will make the RTX 3070 Ti around 1.5x faster than an RTX 2070 Super, say Nvidia.
As I mentioned earlier, you can read all about the RTX 3080 Ti's performance in my RTX 3080 Ti review, and I'll be doing the same for the RTX 3070 Ti closer to its launch next week.