Nvidia racks more affordable RTX 4080, confessing its name was ‘confusing’

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Nvidia will certainly be “unlaunching” the 12 GB design of its RTX 4080 graphics card, the firm announced Friday. The information comes simply weeks after the firm disclosed the item as component of a new line of GPUs. In a quick post, Nvidia did not supply much context for the choice past stating that the card was “not named right.”

Nvidia revealed 2 — well, practically 3 — brand-new GPUs in late September, the RTX 4090 as well as RTX 4080. The last would certainly be readily available in 2 variations, Nvidia stated: a design with 16 GB of video clip memory as well as one with 12 GB.

Based on that particular, one could assume that the RAM would certainly be the only distinction in between both RTX 4080 versions. However, that was not the situation — the GPUs were to include significantly various specs. The 16 GB design has 9,728 CUDA cores, a rise of greater than 26% over the 12 GB card’s 7,680 cores. And while both versions had GDDR6X memory, the RAM in the 12 GB version was slower, with reduced memory data transfer. As we placed it in our article of Nvidia’s 40-series GPU news, it may be much better to think about the 12 GB design “as an entry-level RTX 4080 that’s closer to a RTX 4070.5” as opposed to a real high-powered RTX 4080.

“Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing,” Nvidia recognized Friday.

The 2 RTX 4080 versions were valued according to their specifications — the 16 GB variation would certainly begin at $1,199, whereas the 12 GB design would certainly begin at $899. Nvidia’s choice to draw the more affordable card leaves just 2 exceptionally pricey GPUs in the firm’s 40-series line: The RTX 4090, which introduced previously today, begins at an eye-watering $1,599. It’s a great deal to ingest when the high rates of these brand-new graphics cards have actually currently led computer players to reveal issue over having the ability to manage them.

The future of the 12 GB RTX 4080 stays vague; all that Nvidia stated was that the firm would certainly be “unlaunching” it. (While we’re right here, it’s worth keeping in mind that neither design of the RTX 4080 has really introduced yet — both were set up to debut in November.)

“Unlaunching” can imply that Nvidia will completely shelve the 12 GB card. It’s additionally feasible that Nvidia will just rebrand this GPU in a manner that really feels even more rep of its specifications. The firm probably has prepare for lower-powered 40-series graphics cards in the future — an RTX 4070, RTX 4060, and so on. — so possibly this set can port right into that development someplace.

Polygon has actually connected to Nvidia for additional context on its choice as well as explanation on the future of the 12 GB RTX 4080. We’ll upgrade this write-up with any kind of details we get.

 

Source: Polygon