NVIDIA's incoming RTX 5080 will benefit from the fastest video RAM of the entire next-gen Blackwell range, going by a fresh leak.
This comes from Benchlife as highlighted by Harukaze5719 on X (hat tip to VideoCardz), and the theory is that the RTX 5080 will have 16GB of GDDR7 - as previously rumored - but it'll be 30Gbps memory.
All the other RTX 5000 models, including the flagship RTX 5090, are set to use the standard 28Gbps flavor of GDDR7. So, the RTX 5080 is going to be unique in that respect.
If true, in some ways, this is likely about pushing the RTX 5080 to be a bit more powerful in comparison to the RTX 5090. Because with an allocation of 16GB - half of the flagship's 32GB - it's lagging behind by a long way, and the same is true of the theoretical core count (10,752 CUDA Cores versus 21,760 in the RTX 5090).
For a lot of gamers, the RTX 5080 is shaping up to be a shaky proposition of a high-end graphics card, but we've got to remember that GDDR7 is nippy video RAM, and with a 256-bit memory bus, this GPU would have a total bandwidth of 960GB/s. That's very nearly 1TB/s and almost the equal of the RTX 4090, so it's not disappointing in terms of raw speed.
Capacity is a rather different kettle of fish, though, and 16GB is looking very thin on the ground for a next-gen second-tier GPU, when it comes to driving demanding games in the future at 4K resolution.
A lot will depend on pricing, too, but the hints that we've heard so far about the RTX 5080 are worryingly skewed towards both this Blackwell GPU, and the flagship, being wallet-busting propositions. We shall see, but at the moment, we fear the worst on the pricing front, and a fair hike on the initial MSRPs compared to their current-gen counterparts when those GPUs first came out.
It's also worth noting that Benchlife provides purported specs for the other RTX 5000 GPUs supposedly inbound for Q1 of 2025, and mentions the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti. As per other fresh rumors, the belief is that the RTX 5060 is going to disappoint with VRAM, as well, with NVIDIA purportedly equipping it with just 8GB, like the RTX 4060 before it.
The better news is that the RTX 5060 Ti has 16GB, in theory - but the RTX 5070 is marked as a 12GB board, just as previous rumors have insisted. So, half of the models in the Blackwell range are set to disappoint PC gamers on the VRAM front, if this is correct - the more generous memory offerings belong to the RTX 5090, RTX 5070 Ti (where 16GB feels more at home) and RTX 5060 Ti. Again, assuming the rumor mill hasn't gone well off track with these specs.