Nvidia Unlaunches One of Their Recently Announced Graphics Cards - The 4080 12GB is No More

So, this is a weird one. Nvidia does something that our text editor doesn’t recognize as a word and “unlaunches” one of the cards that they announced almost a month ago. This is about their cheapest least expensive card offered, the Nvidia 4080 12GB, that launched at a pretty hard to swallow 899 USD.

Nvidia’s reasoning for this is that having two cards with the same name “is too confusing”. The 4080 16GB (which we assume will drop the memory amount) will still launched as scheduled, with an eye-watering price of 1199. That said…

The Truth About the 4080 12GB

When the cards were announced in September, we just listed the cards and their price and called it a day. However, on further inspection, the difference in memory wasn’t the only thing that set the two 4080 models apart. The 12GB was severely weaker, with 1200 less CUDA cores, lower frequency, and a smaller memory bus. The 12GB has been delisted from their site, so you can’t compare the 2, but you can find an archived version on the Way Back Machine.

What many in the industry speculated happened is that this was supposed to be the RTX 4070. However, Nvidia changed the name at the last second in order to avoid the insane price hike between this card and it’s predecessor, the 3070, which launched at 499 USD (in theory, anyway), and shrink the difference between the 80 models.

Them getting rid of the weaker card is likely in response to the internet catching on to this stunt and mocking them. Now that the 12GB model is out, though, the difference in price between the 3080 and the 4080 at launch is 600 USD (again, in theory).

So why didn’t we report on it? We’re not really a hardware site, and we’re only bringing these cards to the forefront because a new generation of graphics cards is always exciting, especially after 2 years of overpricing. Besides, when shopping for these kinds of products, ALWAYS wait for third party reviews, and ALWAYS check multiple sources.

Now, this does beg the question: What will happen with 4070? Best case scenario is that it’s the same card that was announced, but with a way smaller price. The most realistic scenario, however, is that it’ll come back at around the same price, maybe 100 USD cheaper. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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 Site

What do you think about the unlaunching of the 4080 12GB? What do you think will happen with the 4070? Let us know in the comments below!