NVIDIA Reportedly Delays RTX 3080 12GB and 3070 Ti, RTX 3050 to Come In Two Variants

If the rumor mill is to be believed, NVIDIA will only be announcing the RTX 3050 and RTX 3090 Ti at its forthcoming CES 2022 presentation, with the RTX 3080 (12 GB) and RTX 3070 Ti coming at a later date.

The reason why? Ongoing component shortages — hardly a surprise given the current state of the market. Both GPUs were supposed to be revealed on December 17th but have been pushed back for wholly obvious reasons. This means that, out of all NVIDIA’s forthcoming high-end graphics cards, only the RTX 3090 Ti will be unveiled at CES. It’s still too early to talk about availability and pricing, but rumor has it that it’ll retail for $1500—2000 (MSRP). How much it’ll actually go for still remains to be seen.

“In general, the situation of the board partners, whether from NVIDIA or AMD, is relatively tense. In the regions concerned, not only these companies but also suppliers are said to be so severely affected by the shortage of components that temporary plant closures of up to 90% could be expected,” said Igor Wallossek.

So, unless you’re an industry professional doing heavy 3D renders — or a crypto miner — this one will probably be outside of your budget. As for the two delayed GPUs, they could still hit the shelves by the end of Q1 2022, although one can never be too certain these days.

So, if you’ve been waiting for NVIDIA’s newest flagships (the more affordable ones), you’ll have to wait a little bit longer.

Entry-Level SKUs — Finally on the Way

NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 Ti, powerful though it surely is, isn’t what most of us are looking forward to — it’s the RTX 3050. We’re talking about one of the most anticipated GPUs in recent history and “team green’s” long-awaited foray into the more affordable segment of the market.

Spec’d out Ampere-based behemoths are great and all, but so few of us have the funds — or the willingness — to invest such obscene amounts of money on our graphics cards. The RTX 3050 will, therefore, offer the most “bang for our buck.” Moreover, it won’t as stellar for crypto mining as its more powerful brethren, so we might actually be able to buy this particular model at a (relatively) reasonable price.

Rumor has it that NVIDIA will launch two SKUs, one with 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM and another with 8GB, for those who really want to maximize their gaming experience and get their hands on something a bit more future-proof.

Both SKUs will reportedly be announced on January 4th and then subsequently made available on January 27th. So, if things pan out “as expected,” we’ll have something very exciting to talk about and benchmark in just a few weeks! Stay tuned for more coverage as the battle between NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel will only get fiercer and fiercer as time goes on!