Nvidia is set to phase out the older, slower version of it RTX 3060Ti graphics card, and it’ll only sell the newer 3060 Ti with faster video memory, if the rumor mill is correct — with potential ramifications for Team Green’s mid-range GPU strategy, the RTX 4060 (we’ll get back to that).
First, let’s take a look at the rumor itself, which comes from a regular source of speculation in China, MyDrivers (Opens in a new tab) (As tagged by Cards video (Opens in a new tab)). The source claims that third-party graphics card manufacturers are now gradually – but surely – phasing out the slower original version of the 3060 Ti.
If you remember, the faster variable claimed to be kept differs only in terms of VRAM – and The new 3060 Ti has 19Gbps GDDR6X memoryCompared to the 14Gbps GDDR6 of the old card. This causes a significant bump in memory bandwidth from 448GB/s to 608GB/s (the 8GB of VRAM load remains the same, by the way, as do all of their other specs). graphics cards).
The good news is that buyers will get a more performing RTX 3060 Ti without any change in price. At least that’s what MyDrivers assures will be the case for the Chinese market, and with any luck that should extend to the global market. We don’t see why that wouldn’t happen, but that being said, you never know what might happen on the pricing front.
MyDrivers also mentions Nvidia’s new RTX 3060 8GB variant, which drops the VRAM from the current machine. RTX 3060 from 12GB (and reduces the memory bus from 192-bit to 128-bit), and so on is a little different in that it’s an older version. However, it is not known if the older model will be phased out in this case, although we hope not (and it is likely that the sources have heard of this too, if that is the case; or that is what we tentatively assume).
Analysis: Ending Confusion – But Also Sending an Alarming Signal?
Obviously, we should still treat this as a rumor, because that’s exactly what it is. But it’s a bit of theorizing that makes sense, and hopefully that’s the direction Nvidia intends to take with the RTX 3060 Ti.
After all, it is always confusing for consumers when a situation happens that there are identical models of graphics cards that have somewhat different specifications, even if they are not that far apart. Reducing it to the only variant of the 3060 Ti will help clear up any confusion, and ensure that less tech-savvy buyers don’t opt for a model that’s slightly inferior to the 3060 Ti without realizing that this is the case.
Keeping the price the same as with the outgoing model is also a positive point, although as mentioned we have to hope this applies outside of China.
However, this isn’t all good news in terms of the signals it’s been sending from Nvidia — namely, the company is looking to keep the RTX 3060 Ti as a mid-range workhorse going forward for some time. Or, to put it another way, the RTX 4060 isn’t likely to be on the horizon — even remotely — as the plan seems to continue to push RTX 3000 stock into the wallet-friendly front.
This unfortunately matches up with the latest rumors we’ve heard elsewhere regarding cheaper Lovelace GPUs, with the belief that the RTX 4060 is still a long way off, and It may not arrive until June 2023. It’s also bolstered by how little we’ve heard about the 4060 so far in the rumor mill, too.
All that said, we might see something for lower-end Lovelace GPUs in the near future, but for laptops, with A modern vision of the RTX 4050 Mobile version (add a lot of spice, naturally). But in short, from the way everything seems to be shaping up so far, don’t hold your breath for more affordable desktop RTX 4000 GPUs — it looks like Nvidia is banking on the RTX 3000 lineup to hold the pressure at that end of the market for some time yet.
