Nvidia has released an unconventional statement, where the company announced that it is “discontinuing” the 12GB GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card due to naming issues.
Slated to launch on November 16 alongside the more powerful RTX 4080 16GB, the RTX 4080 12GB has been surrounded by controversy since it was announced last month during the Series 40 reveal.
Addressing the controversy, Nvidia admitted that the RTX 4080 12GB was not named correctly and that having two GPUs with the same 4080 designation was confusing. Here’s the relevant part of the company’s statement:
The RTX 4080 12GB is a great graphics card, but it doesn’t have the right name. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.
So we’re hitting the “unboot” button on the 12GB 4080. The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and is on its way to delighting gamers everywhere on November 16th.
Since its announcement, the name of the RTX 4080 12GB has been a point of contention among the media and consumers. While the naming suggests that the only difference between it and the RTX 4080 16GB is the available video memory, the RTX 4080 12GB is also a significantly scaled-down GPU, with 27% fewer CUDA cores and a bus width of reduced memory This should result in a completely different performance profile compared to the larger 16GB RTX 4080 model, as was also evidenced in some of Nvidia’s performance charts.
While Nvidia is no stranger to releasing desktop graphics cards with the same name but different capabilities, not to mention the whole mess that is laptop GPU nomenclature, the 12GB RTX 4080 was possibly the most egregious example of duping customers with similar names.
According to the report from Gamers Nexus, it appears that the eventual re-release of the RTX 4080 12GB will also include a price adjustment along with a new name. The popular opinion at the moment is that Nvidia will go back to using an RTX 4070/4070 Ti name for the card, but there is no firm information on the matter yet.
While this is a win for customers and the right move by Nvidia, you can’t help but feel bad for all of Nvidia’s board partners, who would have been in the final stages of manufacturing, packaging and marketing the RTX 4080 12GB, only to have to redo all or most of it to fit the new naming and pricing. It is reported, however, that Nvidia will subsidize part of the cost of this change to board members.
The 16GB RTX 4080 is still scheduled to launch on November 16th at the same starting price of $1199 as before.
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