Nvidia could be releasing not just one, but two next-gen GPUs this year – and those graphics cards might be here sooner than you think (equip yourself with a saltshaker at this point).
YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID) tells us that one of his best sources for Nvidia leaks just dropped the claim that Team Green is preparing the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 – which will be strong candidates for our list of the best graphics cards – for a Q4 launch. And that the company is even mulling the possibility of a late Q3 release for these Blackwell GPUs.
This backs up recent chatter which points to a release for both of these products in 2024, although nobody has mentioned a Q3 timeframe – let alone both of these graphics cards arriving late in Q3 (which would be September, presumably).
We should underline the caveat that the source says there’s only a slim chance of that Q3 launch happening, though.
Another source MLID spoke to (at a distributor) also asserts that RTX 5000 GPUs are set to launch in either Q3 or Q4 2024, albeit adding that they found this surprising.
So, a September release is still a possibility, apparently, and if this really is the case, we only have five months to wait before we see the RTX 5080 and 5090 spring onto the scene – not long at all. MLID also floats the idea of an initial unveiling for these Blackwell GPUs at Computex (in June).
On top of this, MLID further shares a quote from a third source at a laptop maker who takes a different line, namely that Blackwell mobile GPUs won’t have decent availability until late in Q1 2025 or maybe even Q2.
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Analysis: Needs must as the AI Instincts drive?
The last source seems rather at odds with the others, then, but remember that this leak is talking about laptop GPUs and not desktop graphics cards as the other two are. However, Blackwell notebook products have previously been rumored for Q1 2025, and the mention of Q2 is a suggestion of a delay (remembering that this is all pre-release chatter to be regarded with huge handfuls of seasoning, of course).
If we’re looking at a late Q3 2024 release for desktop RTX 5000, and a Q2 2025 release for notebook GPUs (in volume), that seems to be a pretty wide gap. So, what gives?
Well, as source number two points out, the reason Nvidia might be looking at pushing up the initial salvo of RTX 5090 and 5080 desktop GPUs to perhaps September 2024 is not because it’s worried about RDNA 4 releasing and how that might change the GPU landscape. After all, the rumor mill is at this stage quite certain that AMD’s next-gen graphics cards will top out at the mid-range (albeit they’ll be powerful middle-of-the-pack performers).
So, these RDNA 4 products, if they should arrive in Q3 2024 as some rumors have suggested (although equally, others have mulled later launch timeframes), are not anything Nvidia has to worry about taking on the RTX 5080 – they won’t be near its performance levels.
The source contends that an earlier RTX 5090 and 5080 launch wouldn’t be about RDNA 4 and what might happen there, but rather it’d be a decision made due to Nvidia’s other products – the Blackwell heavyweight (AI) launches.
The issue is that when these AI GPUs arrive – and that needs to be sooner rather than later, ideally, due to the threat from AMD’s Instinct MI300X accelerators – it’ll pretty much give away the spec of the RTX 5000 high-end graphics cards, so Nvidia basically feels like it must launch these as a result. The big catch, however, is that the RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs coming early (in Q3) would basically be a paper launch.
In other words, Nvidia will get these RTX 5000 graphics cards revealed and out there – as needs must, due to them using the exact same dies as the AI GPUs – but they won’t be in any real quantity. These boards will sell out in a flash, and they won’t be available on shelves in any proper numbers until late in 2024 (as per the original rumors on this).
In short, this is a necessary tactical move by Nvidia – or it could be, because as noted, it isn’t certain Team Green will pursue this route anyway. It surely wouldn’t have been the original plan to have the RTX 5080 out in September 2024, given that the RTX 4080 Super refresh has not long been on the GPU scene.