Nvidia cancels the sale of the 12GB version of 4080, and Huang is also scolded

Hengyu from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit | Public Account QbitAI

NVIDIA is being criticized this time.

In the latest announcement, Nvidia announced that it will cancel the RTX 4080 12GB model from the November 16 release.

The official reasons given are:

The RTX 4080 12GB is a great graphics card, but its naming is a mistake .

Calling both graphics cards 4080 can easily cause confusion.

Since the day Huang introduced the 40 series graphics cards to everyone, the RTX 4080 has been widely criticized.

First, as the announcement said, the naming of the two RTX 4080s , RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB , is confusing;

Second, the performance of RTX 4080 12GB is not as good as expected, and the price is quite expensive , about RMB 7,199. Previous dessert cards, such as RTX 3070, were priced at 3,799 yuan.

The "brother model" ridiculed by netizens

In September this year, the RTX 4080 12GB came out, and it was announced that it would be launched at the same time as the other two high-end models of the 40 series, RTX4090 24GB and RTX4080 16GB.

Previous specification chart:

With a comparison, a sharp-eyed person can find the clues.

The two RTX 4080s seem to be from the same series and share the same architecture, but in fact, the RTX 4080 12GB is very different!

Specifically, the RTX 4080 12GB includes 7680 CUDA cores, a 2.31GHz base frequency that can be increased to 2.61GHz. It also has 639 Tensor-TFLOPs, 92 RT-TFLOPs, and 40 Shader-TFLOPs.

In contrast, the RTX 4080 16GB is more powerful, with a CUDA core count of 9728, a base frequency of 2.21GHz that can be increased to 2.51GHz, and 780 Tensor-TFLOPs, 113 RT-TFLOPs and 49 Shader-TFLOPs.

As the lowest-end product in the RTX 40 series of graphics cards, the RTX 4080 12GB uses the smaller AD104 GPU ( the 16GB version is the AD103 GPU) , and is only equipped with 192bit wide video memory.

This specification is never this low, even in the entire x70 series.

A few days ago, NVIDIA officially announced the game test data of the 40 series graphics cards .

After turning on DLSS 3 in the highest 4K quality of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the RTX 4090 can reach 152.7fps, the RTX 4080 16GB can reach 147.3fps, and the RTX 4080 12GB can reach 121.5fps.

In the highest 4K image quality of "F1 22", with ray tracing and DLSS 3 turned on, the RTX 4090 can reach 184fps, the RTX 4080 16GB can reach 143fps, and the RTX 4080 12GB can reach 113fps.

According to this official data, RTX 4080 16GB will perform 24%-30% higher than the 12GB version .

It’s no wonder that core enthusiasts are complaining, and disdainfully call the RTX 4080 12GB the “little brother model” in the entire 40 series, thinking that it is just a fancy name for the x70 series graphics card to increase its value.

Some netizens commented that the RTX 4090 is quite good, the RTX 4080 16GB is slightly worse than it, and the 12GB version is the slowest.

With its performance obviously lagging behind, the price of RTX 4080 12GB is not very attractive .

The original price of the 40 series graphics cards is as follows:

RTX 4090 is priced at $1,599, starting at RMB 12,999.
RTX 4080 16GB is priced at $1,199, starting at RMB 9,499.
RTX 4080 12GB is priced at $899, starting at RMB 7,199.

The domestic price of the previous 30 series graphics cards was as follows:

RTX 3090 is priced at 11,999 yuan,
RTX 3080 is priced at 5,499 yuan, and
RTX 3070 is priced at 3,799 yuan.

What we are saying is that, in light of the performance data, this increase seems a bit excessive?

Currently, the RTX 4080 12GB has disappeared from Nvidia’s official website, leaving only the 16GB version directly called RTX 4080 .

As for what to do after the sale is canceled, Nvidia has not made a clear statement.

Many netizens speculated:

It was probably returned to the factory to be painted and re-stamped with 4070.

△ "So it can start over from 4070"

In any case, I hope that when the 4070 graphics card is launched, more thought will be given to the naming to avoid having to be removed from the shelves due to too confusing names like the 4080.

Although the RTX 4080 12GB will not be released as scheduled, NVIDIA still hopes that friends will look forward to the 16GB.

Nvidia released a batch of RTX 4090 public versions on October 12 , priced at 12,999 yuan. All the graphics cards on the shelves were sold out in seconds .

The number of reservations for the new round of RTX 4090 pre-sales at JD.com NVIDIA's official store has exceeded 85,000.

Probably because of the popularity of the RTX 4090, Nvidia also posted a bunch of photos of the rush to buy the RTX 4090 in its announcement to cancel the sale.

Some stayed up late to queue up, and some put seat belts on the 4090s they got:

However, this move was called a "honey operation" by netizens :

So, are you still looking forward to the RTX 4080 graphics card?

Reference links:
[1] https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/12GB-4080-unlaunch/
[2 https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/14/23404595/nvidia-rtx-408-12GB-unlaunch?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33205632