Nvidia has reportedly paused supply of its GeForce flagship RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti to its Add-In Board partners (AIB). Given that these are some of Nvidia’s most popular cards, this decision has raised eyebrows. It isn’t clear why Nvidia has done this; some guesses are that it’s limiting supply to manage inventory more effectively. On the surface it might look like an effort to balance stock, but there could be other reasons behind its decision.
The RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti have seen huge leaps in popularity lately. The 4060 sits at second place on Steam’s Hardware and Software survey September 2024, while the 4060 Ti is fourth and the RTX 4060 Laptop graphics card is third. The top spot is held by the 3060, but that is projected to be replaced by the 4060 soon. In September 2024, use of the 4060 rose by 1.17% while the 3060 rose by only 0.17%.
The 4060’s surge in popularity makes perfect sense considering a great budget option for gamers. It offers strong performance for an affordable price. Then there’s Nvidia’s decision to discontinue older models like the RTX 3060 Ti...it’s no wonder more gamers are opting for 40-series GPUs.
Wccftech spotted the information on Chinese Board Channels, where it was reported that Nvidia had made the decision to suspend shipments to AIBs (essentially the third-party manufacturers that produce customized versions based on Nvidia’s reference designs. Some of these partners include Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte). The suspension is expected to last for two weeks, and if that’s true, that isn’t very long.
The 4060 and 4060 Ti are still available to buy at many retailers globally, but Nvidia’s decision could be for a much more interesting reason. We reported on the rumors bewing about Nvidia’s next-gen flagship GPUs being unlikely to unveiled till CES 2025, but what if this little suspension might be in preparation for surprising early release? It certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. Then there’s the potential that it could be the company’s way of drumming up more demand thanks to the 4060’s recent jump in popularity. Some customers might be a little more cynical, and believe it's probably some calculated money grab by Nvidia.
Then there’s the rumored discontinuation of the RTX 4090 and RTX 4090D GPUs from October to make way for the flagship GPUs. Based on that, it makes sense that some would believe that either the 4060 and 4060 Ti were being phased out and discontinued too. This theory might be the least likely, though, seeing as it wouldn’t really make sense for Nvidia to do that considering the position the 4060 and 4060 Ti currently hold in popularity.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, because all we can do right now is speculate, and it could all end up being for the reason stated on Board channels - it might just truly be a way for Nvidia to balance stock and manage retailer demand more efficiently.
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