Ahead of its release on November 16, Nvidia decides to pull the plug on RTX 4080’s 12 GB variant after receiving criticisms regarding the difference between this and its 16 GB variant.
In a blog post, Nvidia stated that the RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card but it’s not named right as having two GPUs with the 4080 designation would be confusing. Hence they’re pressing the ‘unlaunch’ button on the 4080 12GB. Here’s the full statement:
The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.
So, we’re pressing the “unlaunch” button on the 4080 12GB. The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and on track to delight gamers everywhere on November 16th.
If the lines around the block and enthusiasm for the 4090 is any indication, the reception for the 4080 will be awesome.
Nvidia
The reason for the RTX 4080 12GB being cancelled is due to the major backlash and criticism Nvidia faced for releasing the RTX 4080 16 GB and the 12 GB variant with such a similar name.
The RTX 4080 12GB variant claimed 7680 CUDA Cores compared to 9728 CUDA Cores for the RTX 4080 16GB, a 21% decrease, with clock speeds that were essentially the same on both models. The 12GB variant also featured fewer CUDA Cores and was really designed to use the complete GPU drive which frustrated a lot of fans.
Additionally, 16GB card’s 192-bit interface, rather than its 256-bit version, decreased memory bandwidth. Due to this, the RTX 4080 12GB card would have been much slower than the 16GB variant. Having two expensive GPUs with such vast differences in performance while naming them in a similar manner feels very misleading.
The RTX 4080 16 GB variant will launch on November 16 and will be priced at $1,199 dollars (CAD $1664 & €1230 approximately).
The RTX 4080 12 GB variant will go through a makeover, meaning that the card will relaunch at a later date with a new name and pricing. As for fans waiting to buy a reasonably-priced RTX 40 series card will have to wait longer.
About Nvidia
NVIDIA Corporation is an American multinational technology company incorporated in Delaware, based in Santa Clara, California. They design graphics processing units (GPUs) for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on chip units (SoCs) for the mobile computing and automotive market.
Best known for the “GeForce” lines of GPUs, they are a direct competitor to AMD’s “Radeon” series. NVIDIA has also expanded its offerings with its handheld game consoles Shield Portable, Shield Tablet, and Shield Android TV and its cloud gaming service GeForce Now.
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