Nvidia took the unusual step on Friday of “unlaunching” a product it had just launched last month -- the RTX 4080 12GB graphics card.
“The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right,” Nvidia said in a blog. “Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.” The other 4080 with 16GB is still on track for release Nov. 16.
How the naming snafu happened was not explained in the blog, nor did the company say when it plans to relaunch the 12GB version under a different name.
It might not matter. Nvidia tried to change the subject and focus on success with another recent card, the RTX 4090, and “lines around the block” to buy it, adding that kind of support suggests “the reception for the 4080 will be awesome.” The company ran several photos of lines of 4090 buyers around the block at different stores.
Nobody has ever accused Nvidia of lacking a gaming fan base, but fans were clearly upset with pricing of the latest cards after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang held up the RTX 4090 during his keynote address at GTC Fall. The 4090 is $1,599, while the two 4080s had been priced at $899 and $1,199, with the 16GB version (still being sold soon) at the upper price.
A Twitter post from “deeb” had urged gamers to avoid buying the 4080 cards, since the 3080 version two years ago was $699 originally. Some later hoped pulling the 4080 12 GB version for its name might also indicate a lower price than $899 is on the way.
In typical gamer snark, Mukhtar tweeted Friday that the unlaunch was “totally not because they got fcking grilled by reviewers.”
After the pricing firestorm surfaced in September, Intel introduced an Arc A770 graphics card starting at $329 a week after Huang introduced the 4090.
RELATED: Intel boats cheaper gamer graphics card, Arc A770, starting at $329
“GPUs have gotten super expensive and don’t need to,” Gelsinger said in September. “We are hearing complaints of high pricing. Here is the Arc A770.”
The two 4080s from Nvidia were very different from each other and not just on price, several experts noted.
The RTX 4080 12GB, starting at $899, was supposed to have 7,680 CUDA cores, a 2.31GHz base close, and 639 Tensor-TFLOPS. Meanwhile, the 16GB is much more powerful, starting at $1,199, with 9,728 CUDA Cores, a base clock of 2.51GHz and 780 Tensor TFLOPs.