The GeForce RTX 40 series GPU will have no 12GB version, according to Nvidia. The card would have been below the RTX 4080 16GB and the RTX 4090, thus effectively canceling it. The 16GB version will still be released as planned on November 16th.
"The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it is not named right," says Nvidia''s statement. "Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is unusual. So, were you putting the "unlaunch" button on the 4080 12GB?"
"Its not named right" is one way of saying it. Personally I was keeping an eye on benchmarks, but the RTX 4080 12GB disclosure ended fairly poorly with PC hardware enthusiasts. However, it was never the first of the RTX 4080 16GB with less RAM, with less bandwidth; the RTX 4080 12GB overall memory bandwidth would be significantly reduced than the original, according to Nvidias AD104, a step below the 16GB AD103. All that for a much higher starting
Cancelling the launch outright appears to be a serious step, particularly with the release day only one month away. If you believe this would cause significant damage to board partners from Nvidia, who will have paid for the right to produce their own RTX 4080 12GB cards, then youe almost certainly right. Nvidia is, according to reports, causing significant damage to the now-used packaging that the former RTX 4080 12GB partner cards would have been sold in.
Logic would suggest the new RTX 4070 or RTX 4070 Ti, although no additional name or release date has been announced, according to the report. It''s a bad deal if the previous RTX 4080 12GB stock is rebranded as a different RTX 40 series product instead of being buried in the desert next to Ataris 700,000 E.T. cartridges.
