Nvidia’s RTX 4090 may be the only high-end GPU released this year, with the other Lovelace graphics cards – the RTX 4080 and models below that – following in 2023, according to a new rumor.
This is the latest gossip from Greymon55, a well-known hardware leaker on Twitter, who seems pretty cocky about what sources have said, although clearly, we should still take this with a bucket of salt.
As you can see from these recent tweets, the theory is that Nvidia will announce the AD102, which refers to the RTX 4090, in September ahead of its October launch (meaning it will be available for purchase). Note that this is also contention for Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs, a rumor we’ve heard from other sources as well.
However, the other Lovelace chips, AD103, AD104, and AD106, which are supposed to represent the RTX 4080, and RTX 4070 plus 4060, rumored to be the AD106 being the RTX 4050, won’t arrive until 2023.
That would be surprising to say the least, as rumor often claims that we’ll see a staggered launch of the first Lovelace GPUs in late 2022, with the RTX 4090 being followed by the 4080 and 4070 before the year is out.
in a follow-up tweet (opens in new tab)Greymon clarifies that it’s “more likely” the case that only the RTX 4090 will be released this year because of “too many inventories”, which presumably refers to the overstocking of current-generation RTX 3000 graphics cards that retailers and card makers have. still have to sell before Nvidia can release high-end models (without letting those partners down).
Analysis: Weighing the balance of a boat full of Lovelace rumors
So what to do with it? It’s a little shocking to think that only the RTX 4090 will be released in 2022, in all honesty, and that certainly goes against the theories prevalent in the rumor mill so far.
Then again, we’ve heard a lot about Nvidia having issues with graphics card manufacturers having trouble cleaning up the excess RTX 3000 stock. Indeed, this has been a persistent message lately, and recently other leakers such as Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID), talked about a possible delay to the release of the RTX 4000.
However, MLID sources were speculating about a rollback to perhaps November or December 2022 at the latest, not early next year (when Greymon says 2023, we’re presuming that means January, or very early, certainly). Also remember that we witnessed conversations around Nvidia wanting to cut orders at TSMC and push back the production schedule of the next-gen Lovelace GPUs as well.
So maybe Greymon is on to something and Nvidia has actually negotiated some sort of delay? Maybe there’s a chance of that, but we’re not so sure, and we’ll need to hear more of the rumor to believe that such a huge delay, in terms of just releasing the RTX 4090 this year, could be possible.
If Team Green were to only release its flagship GPU, that would leave the door open for AMD to come in with new RDNA 3 graphics cards – which are due to debut in October – and potentially make a big impression. (Particularly if the mid-range RDNA 3 GPUs – which will find a much wider audience than a niche flagship like the 4090 – are the first out of AMD’s door, though that’s by no means certain , even if there are rumors in the past).
No matter how carefully Nvidia has to deal with its graphics card manufacturing partners, there’s certainly only a limited amount of tiptoeing around these companies that can be serviced, balanced with the potential perception of the Green team falling behind. AMD, which would end up being worse for the business when it comes to the next-gen GPU wars.
Ultimately, we’re not convinced by this latest Greymon rumor, particularly as the latest thing we’ve heard from MLID about Lovelace’s release is that the expectation is that a ‘real amount’ of GPUs will be available before December, so some volume series of high-end RTX 4000 cards should be on shelves in November, in theory. And an RTX 4090 release by itself would certainly not represent a serious volume of graphics cards…
What this new rumor might point to is that Nvidia is controlling things, and perhaps a good compromise view is that we might see a more limited release than initially planned for Team Green, but still a decent amount of GPUs coming in for a while. there. year. That could mean a release of RTX 4090 plus 4080 (in October and November maybe) and maybe a 4090 Ti spin if need be to compete with the flagship RDNA 3, as Nvidia doesn’t yet know how powerful the performance of the latter. .
We definitely expect to see more than one Lovelace GPU in 2022, and we’d be really surprised if Nvidia only releases the RTX 4090 this year.
