Nvidia’s plans for launching new GPUs at the end of this year and the beginning of next could be disrupted, according to the latest from the grapevine.
As you may be aware, Nvidia is rumored to have an RTX 3090 Ti graphics card on the near horizon, along with an RTX 3050 plus RTX 3070 Ti revamp with more VRAM (16GB).
The latest gossip from well-known leaker Igor (of Igor’s Lab fame) is the latter RTX 3070 Ti 16GB card has now been delayed. Previously, it was expected to be revealed on December 17 before going on sale come January 11, but now, Igor asserts that it won’t launch until some time after the Chinese New Year (which is February 2022), according to his sources anyway.
That’s a considerable potential delay, and one which might be caused by – you guessed it – component shortages.
Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti, however, remains on track for a late January release, with the GPU supposedly to be unveiled at CES 2022. As this is a very expensive high-end card, manufacturing runs will be smaller, and therefore it’s less impacted by part shortages (also, it makes sense to focus on higher profit products, of course, if something has to give somewhere in manufacturing plans).
Igor further reports that Nvidia was apparently planning an RTX 3080 12GB – a new one on us, but hey, it seems like anything goes with GPU revamps right now – but that this has fallen out of favor and is now no longer under discussion apparently. Mainly because the existing RTX 3080 is flying off shelves when available anyway, so 10GB of RAM hardly seems like a sticking point with the card (the 3080 Ti version, of course, runs with 12GB).
Analysis: There’s one ominous omission with this latest GPU gossip
What’s also interesting here is one omission from Igor’s report, namely the RTX 3050 we mentioned earlier. Igor says that his sources indicate that only the launch of the RTX 3090 Ti (at CES) is still on the agenda for Nvidia, and seemingly nothing else.
So hopefully that doesn’t point to a delay with the RTX 3050. The fact that it’s not mentioned at all could just mean Igor didn’t hear anything about it from his sources, and that nothing has changed with the (supposed) intended plans – but it’s a worrying hint that this potential budget launch might also be delayed.
Elsewhere, the rumor mill seems pretty convinced that the RTX 3050 will come alongside the 3090 Ti with an unveiling at CES and on-sale date of January 27, 2022. Though that said, the 3050 has been mentioned with a later (Q2 2022) launch timeframe in the past, so maybe this is more on the mark after all.
Whatever the case, it’s very clear we need some help at the wallet-friendly end of the market, and AMD has plans there too – as well as Intel with its new Arc Alchemist GPUs which are being readied to launch in Q1 2022.
Speaking of Intel, Igor theorizes on the delay of the rumored 16GB version of the RTX 3070 Ti that this may be due to this GPU being the one designed to take the wind out of Team Blue’s flagship Alchemist launch. Therefore Nvidia may just wait for the Alchemist card to actually appear – which may not be until late March or April – before pushing out a rival GPU, to better ensure that it’s positioned to eclipse Intel’s flagship.
That makes some sense, of course, but as ever, we’ll just have to wait and see, as we can’t be sure on how any of these launch timelines will pan out. Especially given that component shortages could conceivably get worse before they get better next year (if the situation improves at all throughout 2022, that is – which Nvidia expects it won’t).
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