Nvidia 12GB RTX 4080 rebranding at the last minute would be annoying for GPU makers

Late last Friday, Nvidia decided that “not divorced“The lower version of the upcoming 12GB GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card so it can be renamed and released at a later time. That was good news for people who care about this sort of thing — the $899, the 12GB RTX 4080 and the $1,199 were the RTX 4080. Entirely different cards with much different performance levels, and giving them the same name can lead to unnecessary disappointment and confusion for the buyer of the cheaper card.

The problem for GPU makers is that Nvidia planned to release these cards in mid-November, and partners have already begun manufacturing and packaging them so they can be shipped to retailers. Nexus for gamers He spoke with sources at two of Nvidia’s board partners about some of these logistical hurdles, stating that existing boxes for the 12GB RTX 4080 cards have been “collected and destroyed” and that Nvidia is “supporting the boxes or at least part of it being changed.” Renamed or re-launched GPUs are supposed to be introduced around CES in January 2023.

There will be other costs for board partners as well, both for GPUs already in production and those that will be manufactured after Nvidia settles on a name (Gamers Nexus says this didn’t happen, but this “4070” or “4070” Ti” looks likely GPU coolers usually have the card name and model number printed on them somewhere, sometimes in a prominent place with programmable LEDs underneath.These coolers will need to either be renamed, reprinted, or replaced to exchange your old RTX 4080 with a new one. .

BIOSes on the cards will need to be re-flashed as well, so that the GPUs correctly identify themselves (for both drivers and operating systems) with their new model number rather than appearing as RTX 4080 cards. Gamers Nexus and their sources aren’t sure if Nvidia will also It has tweaked the card’s specifications to align with its new model name, although Nvidia’s post from last week makes it seem unlikely.

It reads “RTX 4080 12GB is a great graphics card, but it’s not labeled correctly” Original blog post. Changing its specs just to change the name could risk making it less “cool,” and likely generate some consumer backlash that prompted Nvidia to change the name in the first place.

Finally, Gamers Nexus says Nvidia will also “lower the price” of the renamed GPU to reflect the new name. This can be challenging for partners who have already made the cards with the old retail price in mind, especially because It is said that the profit margins of board partners are already very low. If you build (say) $700 or $800 GPUs expecting to sell for $900, you’ll only have a lot of room to lower the price before you start losing money, and we don’t know if Nvidia will offer some kind of discount or reimbursement to partners Those who have already bought a GPU are dying.

Asked by Ars about the payouts, an Nvidia spokesperson told us the company “has nothing to add.”

One partner wouldn’t be affected by this? EVGA, which She broke off her long-running relationship with Nvidia in September Because of an alleged lack of connectivity, and because of competition from first-party Founders Edition cards from Nvidia. There were other sides to this story – EVGA’s profit margins on GPUs It’s supposed to be lower than some of the other Nvidia partners on the board of directors Because they didn’t make their own circuit boards or coolers, for example – but if you wanted to prove that Nvidia might be hard to work with, “renaming the GPU weeks before release and partially compensating partners for the problem” is a great good example.