Following weeks of swirling rumors regarding a potential event for Nvidia to reveal new additions to the Ada Lovelace family of products, those rumors can finally come to rest as the date has been set for “GeForce Beyond,” days before CES 2023 opens doors in Las Vegas. As you may recall, Nvidia unveiled its next generation graphics cards last September which would kick off with three products: the RTX 4090, the RTX 4080 16 GB, and the RTX 4080 12 GB. However, after major backlash due to the RTX 4080 12 GB featuring lesser specifications than its 16 GB counterpart, Nvidia “unlaunched” the 12 GB variant. Many noted that it would be very “Nvidia-like” to reveal the product as a lesser-tiered model and that is exactly what appears to be the case with the upcoming RTX 4070 Ti.
The specifications for the upcoming RTX 4070 Ti are exactly as the original 4080 12 GB, though ultimately it’s not only an issue about bad naming but also terrible pricing. A recent story about pre-order listings on Chinese sites seem to reveal that the 4070 Ti will have the same price as the unlaunched 4080 12 GB. We still don’t know the RTX 4070 Ti’s official US MSRP. Most are expecting it to be considerably lower than the RTX 4080 12GB’s $900, but the indications from China aren’t good. If Nvidia is hoping that consumers will have simply forgotten about the 4080 12 GB fiasco, they are very wrong. Nvidia is also expected to reveal the first RTX 4000 laptop GPUs. Recent leaked information points to an RTX 4080 laptop GPU performing up to 30% faster than Ampere’s flagship laptop GPU, the RTX 3080 Ti. Overall, the GeForce Beyond event is likely to elicit enthusiasm from some consumers while drawing disapproval from others. While it was the right move for Nvidia to “unlaunch” the RTX 4080 12 GB, re-releasing it as a 4070 Ti at the same price would be potentially catastrophic.
