We’ve known that Nvidia’s planning to release the RTX 4090 sometime this year, with a release date in October seeming likely. Alongside this, the expectation was that we’d also see multiple tiers in the RTX 4000 Series family launch in Q3/Q4 as well. However, a new report suggests we may not see Nvidia’s RTX 4080 or 4070 GPUs until 2023. But that’s only if Nvidia decides to push the launches back that far.
This decision is supposedly due to multiple factors behind the scenes. Graphics card availability is in much better shape these days than it was in 2021. Supply chains are now better prepared for high volume production. There’s also the cryptocurrency crash to consider, which has caused an abrupt dip in demand. Previously, the cryptocurrency boom was a major factor in graphics card sales and a major problem for consumers. But since its downfall, a flood of used cards are beginning to hit markets.
According to a new report, Nvidia may push back the launches of the RTX 4080 and 4070 to 2023 to focus on selling the current RTX 30 Series supply.
Will Nvidia consider a change of plans?
YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead shared what could be going on behind the scenes, based on conversations with anonymous Nvidia partner contacts. Nvidia’s plan may now be to sell as much product from the current supply of graphics cards as it can. Distributors want to get rid of this stock before the flood of secondhand graphics cards comes through. Even if the cards have to be sold for a minor loss, it looks like the priority is to get everything out the door. This is a major reason why we may not see Nvidia’s RTX 4080 release until 2023.
In Moore’s Law is Dead’s video, he shares some information from his distributor sources. They’ve said that they “don’t want to buy any more Ampere or Turing stock until we liquidate our existing warehouses.”
Another source says that Nvidia is “working with us on solutions to clear as much stock as possible before Lovelace launches in October.” These sources also state that the majority of mining stock from Asia hasn’t even hit the west yet. Distributors and manufacturers could be in for a tough time if unable to shift enough new product before these second-hand cards show up.
Moore’s Law is Dead goes on to say that this is a problem that won’t affect the RTX 4090. In fact, the launch window for that seems to be pretty secure for October. Since AMD has its own lineup of RDNA 3 cards in the works for launch at the end of the year, Nvidia needs to release something.
However, this decision could hurt sales and disappoint consumers looking for more mainstream options. Nvidia’s current priority is to make way for its 4000 Series lineup. But waiting until 2023 for Nvidia’s RTX 4080 feels strange. This isn’t confirmed either way just yet though, so we’ll have to wait and see what Nvidia decides to do.
