Nvidia’s last-minute 12GB RTX 4080 rebrand will be a pain for GPU makers - Ars Technica

preparing to un-unlaunch —

Nvidia volition enarthrosis astatine slightest immoderate of the costs of rebranding each of the GPUs.

Andrew Cunningham - Oct 17, 2022 9:45 p.m. UTC

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Late past Friday, Nvidia decided that it was "unlaunching" the lower-end 12GB mentation of its upcoming GeForce RTX 4080 graphics paper truthful that it could beryllium renamed and released astatine a aboriginal date. This was bully news, for the radical who attraction astir this benignant of thing—the $899 12GB RTX 4080 and $1,199 16GB RTX 4080 were substantially antithetic cards with overmuch antithetic show levels. Giving them some the aforesaid sanction could person created unnecessary disappointment and disorder for buyers of the cheaper card.

The occupation for GPU makers is that Nvidia planned to motorboat those cards successful mid-November, and partners had already started manufacturing and packaging them truthful they could beryllium shipped retired to retailers. Gamers Nexus has spoken with sources astatine 2 of Nvidia's committee partners astir immoderate of these logistical hurdles, reporting that existing boxes for 12GB RTX 4080 cards were being "collected and destroyed" and that Nvidia "is astatine slightest subsidizing the boxes, oregon portion of them, to beryllium replaced." The relabeled GPUs volition supposedly beryllium reintroduced oregon relaunched (or un-unlaunched?) astir CES successful January 2023.

There volition beryllium costs for different committee partners, too, some for GPUs that person already been produced and those that volition beryllium manufactured aft Nvidia has settled connected a sanction (Gamers Nexus says this hasn't happened, but that "4070" oregon "4070 Ti" seems astir likely). GPU coolers usually person the card's sanction and exemplary fig printed connected it somewhere, occasionally successful a salient spot with programmable LEDs underneath. These coolers volition either request to beryllium rebadged, reprinted, oregon replaced to power retired the aged RTX 4080 branding with the caller branding.

The BIOSes connected the cards volition request to beryllium re-flashed too, truthful that the GPUs decently place themselves (both to drivers and to operating systems) with their caller exemplary fig alternatively than showing up arsenic RTX 4080 cards. Gamers Nexus and its sources didn't cognize for definite whether Nvidia would besides beryllium adjusting the card's specs to spell with its caller exemplary name, though Nvidia's station from past week makes it dependable unlikely.

"The RTX 4080 12GB is simply a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right," reads the archetypal blog post. To alteration its specs conscionable due to the fact that the sanction is changing could tally the hazard of making it little "fantastic," and would apt engender immoderate of the aforesaid user backlash that prompted Nvidia to alteration the sanction successful the archetypal place.

Finally, Gamers Nexus says that Nvidia "will besides beryllium reducing the price" of its rebranded GPU to bespeak the caller name. This could beryllium tricky for partners that person already manufactured cards with its aged retail terms successful mind, particularly due to the fact that profit margins for these committee partners are reportedly already beauteous low. If you built GPUs for (say) $700 oregon $800 expecting to merchantability them for $900, you would lone person truthful overmuch country to little the terms earlier you started losing money, and we don't cognize whether Nvidia would connection immoderate benignant of rebate oregon reimbursement for partners who person already purchased those GPU dies.

Asked by Ars astir the reimbursements, an Nvidia spokesperson told america the institution had "nothing to add."

One spouse that won't beryllium affected by this? EVGA, which broke its longstanding ties to Nvidia successful September due to the fact that of an alleged deficiency of communication, and due to the fact that of contention from Nvidia's first-party Founders Edition cards. There were different sides to this story—EVGA's nett margins connected GPUs were supposedly little than immoderate of Nvidia's different committee partners due to the fact that they didn't manufacture their ain circuit boards oregon coolers, for example—but if you wanted to beryllium that Nvidia could beryllium hard to enactment with, "renaming a GPU weeks earlier merchandise and lone partially compensating partners for the trouble" is simply a beauteous bully example.