Nvidia is ‘unlaunching’ its 12 GB 4080 graphics card

Reeled back in before it got out

Nvidia has announced it is “unlaunching” one of its upcoming graphics cards. The RTX 4080 12 GB card was one of two 4080s set to launch next month, but Nvidia is halting the smaller of the two.

“The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right,” reads a statement from Nvidia. “Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.”

So the 12 GB card will be “unlaunched,” and the Nvidia RTX 4080 16 GB will still arrive on November 16.

The 4090, meanwhile, went live on October 12 and has been reviewing pretty alright as the powerhouse of the new line.

What’s in a name?

The name is one obvious distinction, as having two somewhat similar-sounding cards might be one issue. But the 12 GB and 16 GB configurations are actually a bit more different than the names might imply.

The hardware folks over at Digital Foundry did a breakdown of the distinctions between the two cards, as well as the 24 GB RTX 4090.

While the names imply a difference in VRAM, the 12 and 16 GB are actually fairly different cards. They have different core processors, with “wild variations” in the compute power and memory bandwidth. Nvidia’s own benchmarks have been a bit weird too, compared to the previous 3000 generation of cards.

Suffice to say, it sounds like there were a lot of questions and concerns around this particular model, and Nvidia is taking the option to shelve it. Focus can all go back on to the 16 GB card and the 4090 that way.