If, like many other gamers out there, you're struggling to get a new graphics card, there may be a new option on the horizon. Nvidia's iconic GTX 1080 Ti might be making a comeback, with some suggestion that it's been secretly manufacturing new versions of the card to help stem supply problems.
The Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti was originally released in 2017 as a counter to AMD's then-upcoming Vega line of GPUs. It was complete overkill, easily eclipsing the GTX 1080, and both the Vega 56 and 64 by quite some margin, and even remaining cost competitive. It was such a good card, that even when the next-generation RTX 2000 series released almost a year and a half later, it was still only bested by the RTX 2080 Ti — a far, far more expensive GPU.
In 2021, it's still a solid card, offering performance somewhere between the RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti — more than enough for most gamers. Getting hold of one is prohibitively expensive, as it is with every GPU, but Nvidia might be making more which could help fill some of the gaps in supply faced by GPU sellers at this time.
The reason this is an interesting move, is that Nvidia is currently maxing out its supply of 8nm GPUs, but the 1080 Ti uses a much older 14nm process, which is in greater supply, as it doesn't have anywhere near the demand. That could lead to a be dump of perfectly adequate gaming GPUs, which Nvidia would be able to sell at a reasonable(ish) price.
We don't know for sure this will happen, but WCCFTech has a report of an RMA'd 1080 Ti being replaced with a brand new card made in 2021, so someone is making these cards, and in enough numbers to give them away on returns.
Would you buy a 1080 Ti in 2021?
