It’s fascinating to see how different an engineering sample can be compared to the final product. A Reddit user, Substantial-Mark-959, has reported acquiring an early version of the RTX 2080 Ti that boasts higher specifications than the retail edition.

Using a Founders Edition BIOS and a modified Nvidia driver, the user has managed to get the card operational. The GPU-Z output reveals some compelling details: it has 4480 shaders, 96 ROPs, and 280 TMUs, along with 12 GB of VRAM—one gigabyte more than the retail version.

“Got my hands on a engineering GTX 2080ti.” from r/nvidia

For comparison, the official release of the RTX 2080 Ti features 4352 shaders, 88 ROPs, and 272 TMUs, indicating this sample has potential performance advantages, especially considering its 384-bit bus width compared to the retail card’s 352-bit bus.

This revelation raises questions about why Nvidia ultimately opted to release a less powerful version. Many factors could have influenced this decision, including chip yield uncertainties or thermal challenges during testing. It might have also been a late-stage prototype intended to utilize leftover dies.

Despite its issues, such as occasionally failing to wake from sleep and causing power-down problems, the card seems capable of running demanding benchmarks and games effectively. This discovery shines a light on what could have been an alternate version of a well-known graphics card.