Arr, Nvidia be sayin' they be cuttin' the RTX 4090 Ti, but fear not, mateys, for more affordable treasure might be on its way!
2023-07-27
Avast ye! Word has it that Nvidia be keelhauling the fabled RTX 4090 Ti, only to set sail with lesser mid-range cards. Arr! Walk the plank, I say!
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 Ti graphics card has been a constant topic on the tech industry grapevine since at least 2022, with plenty of rumors circulating about everything from its specs to its design. A new report, however, states that it may not be released at all.It seems that Nvidia may be dropping production on the RTX 4090 Ti, according to a new post from consistent Twitter leaker kopite7kimi. It’s at least supported by a previous rumor report from October 2022, which stated that 4090 Ti development had been halted due to the card’s high power consumption.
They also state that Nvidia might be putting out two new versions of the GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 graphics cards instead, as “low-grade AD103 and AD106 chips” used to develop them.
Right now there’s no more information as to what the specs could be, though it seems to be possible that we’ll be seeing a Super version of both the RTX 4060 and 4070 if the rumor proves true. As PCGamesN points out, the RTX 4070 could also be seeing an “extra-VRAM model, with a cut-down version of the AD103 chip used in the RTX 4080.”
There are several possible reasons for why the RTX 4090 Ti could be canned. One would be based on the previously mentioned rumor concerning power consumption being too high. Another reason, put forth by PCGamesN in the article linked above, is that Nvidia could be happy with the vanilla GeForce RTX 4090’s popularity and sales as it’s currently one of the best graphics cards on the market, and doesn't want to put out another upgrade that won’t be such a sales hit.
The latter theory is supported by the recent disappointing sales of the 4060 Ti, which according to popular retailers around the globe, barely moved any units since launch. Sales seem to be so bad that Nvidia dropped the 16GB RTX 4060 Ti without any fanfare and without sending reviews any units to actually review.
Regardless, it’s a smart move on Nvidia’s part to avoid releasing a Ti version of its strongest card, considering that the RTX 3090 Ti from the last gen was rather pointless and that the RTX 5000-series cards may be coming soon, which would trivialize a 4090 Ti even more.
Finally, Nvidia has been investing heavily in the AI market, and so far has seen enough success that it boosted the tech giant to its trillion-dollar status. So it seems that as least right now, Nvidia has its bases covered which makes the release of an RTX 4090 Ti even more unlikely.