Nvidia has effectively ceased production of its RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards if a new piece of gossip from the grapevine is correct.
As you might imagine, we can pour a whole load of salt to accompany this one, but apparently, these two graphics cards are no longer being manufactured, with Nvidia halting the assembly lines for both models.
This is according to the Board Channels forums over in China, which we don’t regard as the most reliable source of leaks by any means, but it isn’t without success stories when relaying rumors in the past.
VideoCardz, which flagged up the post on the forums, cautions that something may be lost in translation when it comes to the idea of a hard stop for manufacturing these graphics cards. In fact, what might be reported here is a running down of production, a subtle difference.
In other words, some RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti units may still be produced, but just a scattering, rather than full-scale output, and if so, these cards could continue to be available for some time yet – just in much smaller quantities.
Analysis: Decluttering the Lovelace line-up?
In theory, these mentioned models might soon be (kind of) superseded by new Super refreshes. So, a scaling down, or temporary halting of production – or maybe even a full-on discontinuation – does make some sense in light of that.
We’ve even heard elsewhere that Nvidia plans to drop the RTX 4080 when these revamped Super models emerge (purportedly at CES 2024), so this isn’t the first claim that this is happening. Although the RTX 4070 Ti getting cut also is a surprise addition here. When we say cut, this likely means production getting dropped right back to a minimum, which seems the most probable scenario to us.
Indeed, it occurs that the RTX 4070 Ti getting the chop may be an indication that Nvidia does have three refreshes up its sleeve for Lovelace, going against a more recent piece of speculation contending that there may only be two – the RTX 4070 Super and 4080 Super.
The other originally rumored graphics card refresh is the 4070 Ti Super, but if that is inbound, pushing the 4070 Ti to one side makes sense, in terms of not having four different models: the RTX 4070, 4070 Super, 4070 Ti, and 4070 Ti Super, which feels like overload. How many models of one tier of GPU does Nvidia need?
Alternatively, maybe the simple truth is that the RTX 4070 Ti Super idea has indeed been abandoned, keeping these models effectively more streamlined. (It is a confusing name, and shows a lack of planning by Nvidia, frankly, as it feels completely jammed into the Lovelace range).
All of this feels very up in the air, so we’ll just have to wait and see how the situation unfolds as to what incoming models will be vying for a place in our ranking of the best graphics cards. It’s also worth noting that Nvidia doesn’t make an RTX 4070 Ti (Founders Edition), so when talking about cutting production, that means the supply of chips to third-party graphics card manufacturers.