NVIDIA “unleashes” the GeForce RTX 4080 12GB. Says it doesn’t have the “right name”

Just a few weeks ago, NVIDIA announced its new RTX 40 series of graphics cards, with three models in the high-end range. However, it seems that only two of these cards will actually make it to market, with the lower model, the GeForce RTX 4080 with 12GB of video memory currently being “unglassified”, according to the company’s recent announcement. It seems that NVIDIA has gotten the message from the community and trade press, who have been critical of the existence and especially the name of this video card.

GeForce RTX 4080 has been criticized by the community and press

The RTX 4080 12GB was not just a lower RAM version of the higher-end 16GB model. The two graphics cards also had other internal differences, including in the graphics processor, being equipped with far fewer CUDA cores. Thus, regardless of driver optimizations, the card would have offered significantly lower performance compared to the 4080 16 GB model.

Criticism came from the trade press, but also from fans, who called this model just an “RTX 4070” by another name. It seems that NVIDIA has come to the same conclusion, and now not only will the card not be released in November as originally scheduled, it probably won’t be released at all, at least not under the GeFroce RTX 4080 12 GB name.

“The RTX 4080 12 GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it doesn’t have the right name. Offering two GPUs with the 4080 name creates confusion. So we hit the “unlink” button for the 4080 12 GB. The RTX 4080 16 GB model is great and is set to delight gamers everywhere on November 16.”

The card could be released later under a different name

Most likely, the RTX 4080 12GB card will be moved for launch in the early part of 2023, and will probably be renamed to GeForce RTX 4070 or even 4070 Ti, as there is clearly a 4070 model scheduled for later.

Another issue the community has been pointing out since these cards were announced is the price. The RTX 4080 16GB is priced $500 higher than the 3080 2 years ago at launch. Then if the 4070 becomes the 4080 12 GB, it starts at $900, compared to $500 for the previous 3070. Sure, the performance has increased significantly, with NVIDIA suggesting that the 4080 12GB is also more powerful than the RTX 3090 Ti, but even so, these products are becoming harder and harder for gamers to afford.