Nvidia is pulling the plug on its higher-end graphics cards for the current Turing generation, and production of the GeForce RTX 2070 and 2070 Super, plus the RTX 2080 Super and 2080 Ti is being halted, according to a new rumor.
We’d be careful around this particular piece of speculation, as it doesn’t come from what we’d describe as a trusted source, but still, this is apparently the case according to a Chinese tech publication IThome (as spotted by Tom’s Hardware).
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While this is good news on the face of it – production is stopping because Nvidia is about to launch its next-gen Ampere (likely RTX 3000) graphics cards, or that’s the theory, and one the rumor mill has been peddling lately – there is some bad news here too.
Namely that these current high-end RTX 2000 series cards are set to have their prices hiked imminently, so if you do wish to buy a speedy Nvidia graphics card in the very near future, you’re going to be paying through the nose for it.
Supply and demand
At least that’s the allegation, and we’d be particularly cautious about this. IThome argues that because stock of these Turing GPUs will be dwindling, obviously enough with things winding down, plus apparently TSMC, the foundry that makes the cards, is focusing elsewhere anyway, with supply issues therein too.
Couple this with a reported increase in demand for crypto-mining GPUs – yes, that’s a thing again apparently – and you’ve got supply and demand issues pulling in nasty directions, with graphics cards thinner on the ground as a result. Meaning one thing: rising prices for these RTX 2070 and 2080 models.
As we said, though, the price rise element of this rumor certainly needs a good deal of salt tossed around, but the state of play with production of these GPUs being wound down is obviously perfectly believable given that RTX 3000 graphics cards are expected to be launched soon anyway.
The most recent rumor we’ve heard is that Nvidia is targeting a September launch – and AMD may be as well – with mass production cranking up in August, and indeed IThome has floated a date of September 17 for the launch of Ampere GPUs.
If that date is about on the money, that gives us two more months of Turing products being on sale – but perhaps only a few weeks before the prices of these current-gen models start rising (perhaps being the key word here).
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