A 24GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 gaming GPU is now more likely, thanks to Samsung

Samsung's new 24Gb GDDR7 VRAM paves the way for a drop-in memory replacement for 16GB RTX 5080 graphics cards, without changing key specs.

Samsung has just announced a new GDDR7 memory chip that could make the rumored 24GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 a reality. The company’s new 24Gb DRAM gives you 3GB on a single chip, rather than the usual 2GB, meaning a graphics card could accommodate 50 percent more memory without needing a new layout, or indeed a wider memory bus.

One prime candidate for this new memory is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, which is rumored to be coming with 16GB of VRAM in its first guise, but with a 24GB RTX 5080 coming later. However, unlike the originally-mooted RTX 4080 12GB and 16GB, this 24GB card is rumored to have the same core spec as the 16GB RTX 5080, just with more memory, and this new Samsung chip would make that possible.

We’ve known for a while that 24Gb (3GB) GDDR7 chips were in the works, but Samsung is the first company to officially announce a product. The new memory is manufactured using Samsung’s fifth-generation 10nm process, which the company says “enables cell density to increase by 50% while maintaining the same package size as the predecessor.” In this case, the predecessor is the 16Gb (2GB) GDDR7 chip that Samsung announced in 2023.

Samsung also claims that the new memory can hit speeds of up to 40Gbps, and says it can be “further enhanced” to run at up to 42.5Gbps. The company is also keen to point out that Samsung’s new memory tech sees it “extending beyond the traditional applications of graphics DRAM in graphics cards, gaming consoles, and autonomous driving,” with Samsung expecting it to be used in data centers and AI workstations.

We’re not expecting to see memory speeds as high as 42.5Gb/s, but recent rumors have put the RTX 5080 VRAM speed at 32Gbps, which is over 52% quicker than the 21Gbps GDDR6X VRAM used in the RTX 4090. If true, this would mean the RTX 5080 has a total memory bandwidth of 1,024GB/s, despite it being rumored to only have a relatively narrow 256-bit interface.

Of course, all this talk about the RTX 5080 is only based on speculation and rumor right now, but we do now know for sure that 3GB GDDR7 chips are being made, so Nvidia could make a 16GB and 24GB RTX 5080 if that’s its plan.

In the meantime, check out our guide to the best graphics card if you want to know which gaming GPU you should buy for your budget right now, and you can also read our guide to the RTX 5090, where we round up all the latest rumors about Nvidia’s new flagship GPU. If the latest leaks are to be believed, then we may well also see the RTX 5070 announced at the same time, with the RTX 5060 following shortly afterward.