THE CRUNCH
Nvidia's rumoured RTX 5080 24GB could arrive sooner than expected, according to a post on ChannelGate, a Board Channels account that tracks graphics card distribution in China. The post claims Nvidia is "accelerating the pace of listing" for the card, with availability now expected around January 2027 and December 2026 as the earliest option. That would be ahead of earlier reports pointing to the first quarter of 2027, though Nvidia has not confirmed the card exists.
The same post says Nvidia has cleared its RTX 5080 16GB inventory, with remaining stock expected to last around two months, roughly to the end of the year. Nvidia will reportedly stop supplying the 16GB card and the China-exclusive RTX 5090D V2 to China, leaving the 24GB model as the de facto flagship there. The report only covers China, so there is no word yet on whether the 16GB card is going away globally.
The timing lines up with leaker claims from earlier in October that Nvidia had stopped allocating GB202 silicon to the RTX 5090 and would discontinue the 16GB card in January, with an RTX 5080 24GB becoming the top GeForce card. Nvidia has denied discontinuing the RTX 5090, and none of the refresh plans are officially confirmed.
Specs remain unknown, though 24GB on the same 256-bit bus would most likely mean 3GB GDDR7 modules instead of 2GB ones. Pricing is the other open question: Board Channels previously suggested around 19,999 yuan (nearly $3,000) in China, while the 16GB model already sells for close to $2,000 at US retailers, double its $999 MSRP. With the memory shortage expected to worsen in 2027, the 24GB card looks set to be both expensive and hard to find.