Nvidia RTX 4090 could go on sale in October
According to the most recent rumors, Nvidia’s RTX 4090 should debut first among all next-generation Lovelace graphics cards in October. However, there are some unsettling circumstances that might prevent that from happening. Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID), a YouTube leaker who often talks about the RTX 4090, says that the card will be 450W (as was previously rumored) and that it will most likely come out in October, or at least that is Team Green’s current plan, according to one source.
This notion is supported by a second source, which also notes that while the time frame is being anticipated, nothing is “100% decided” at this moment. In other words, it sounds like there’s a chance for things to go south, especially when you take into account everything else that MLID covers in his most recent video. As we’ve heard multiple times, graphics card manufacturers are now “desperate” to move the quantity of RTX 3000 stock they have on hand, and Nvidia is reportedly trying harder to find ways to assist in doing so before Lovelace GPUs are released (and current-gen cards will become much more difficult to shift).
The ex-mining GPUs entering the market, as it appears we haven’t seen anything yet when it comes to these used graphics cards being sold on sites like eBay, are the second aspect that is expected to come into play here and might wind up being a huge drag on the sales of new cards. When these ex-mining cards from Asia reach the Western market, which is reportedly the case for the “vast bulk” of them, it may become even more challenging for Nvidia’s card manufacturing partners to sell Ampere stock in time for the launch of Lovelace.
According to MLID, Nvidia has started taking these problems seriously, and we’ve actually recently seen some proof of it. Nvidia applied significant price reductions to the RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti, as well as the RTX 3080 and 3080 Ti, earlier this week. The 3090 Ti in the US received a $500 discount, and the 3080 Ti received a $100 discount. Additionally, a four-game bundle was added to further entice consumers.
Without a doubt. Nevertheless, there is still a chance that Nvidia will postpone the RTX 4090 launch from October if partners continue to struggle to move RTX 3000 stock. Nvidia is reportedly making plans for that month right now, though not entirely. A “real quantity” of GPUs will be available before December, according to MLID, although that seems to hint at November before we’ll see a substantial number of next-gen cards on shelves. In addition, Lovelace stock to hit shelves in the first month may be limited.
The fact that Nvidia is reportedly still uncertain about the beefier version of the RTX 4090—and whether it will be the 4090 Ti, or perhaps a new RTX Titan—is another intriguing point addressed in this video. Undoubtedly, a more potent card with the full-fat AD102 processor will be released, but whether or not it does so quickly as a 4090 Ti version will depend on how potent AMD’s RDNA 3 flagship turns out to be. In other words, the 4090 Ti will be available as soon as Nvidia needs a response to take the performance lead (with a rumored increased power consumption of around 600W).
If a 4090 Ti is not urgently required to compete with AMD’s next-generation flagship, it won’t launch until later, giving Nvidia more time to improve it (or maybe Team Green will push out a Titan instead, as mentioned, laden with 48GB of VRAM, which has been a rumor in the past). The direction to go with regard to the full-fat AD102 processor is still up in the air and will depend on what AMD comes up with for its premium RDNA 3 product. That makes sense, no doubt.