News Nvidia Korea CEO Offers Further Explanation on RTX 4080 12GB Cancellation

[Admin]

Nvidia's Korean CEO has offered a further explanation on the RTX 4080 12GB's cancellation, suggesting that community feedback was the driving force behind the decision.

Nvidia Korea CEO Offers Further Explanation on RTX 4080 12GB Cancellation : Read more

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

"We at Nvidia deny accusations that we got caught trying to mislead consumers. We are just clarifying a misunderstanding consumers had about our products."

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Who in nVIDIA marketing thought this "4080 16 GB" & "4080 12 GB" naming scheme was a good idea?

Jensen Huang should fire them for this debacle.

It was a unnecessary stain on the companies reputation and 100% self inflicted wound.

The worst part is, if nVIDIA let this confusing naming scheme go on, it could've led to a long term class-action law suit for deceptive business practices.

Something nVIDIA wants to avoid.

We all remember the 3.5 GB VRAM controversy from back in the day and how there was a class action lawsuit over that 0.5 GB of useless VRAM.

 

[Giroro]

It makes me wonder where TechPowerUp gets the info for their GPU database. They've had a "RTX 4070" listed with the same specs as the "4080 12GB" for a long time.

Not that the name matters much. The problem is that Nvidia thinks they can get away with charging $900 for a midrange card that is worth half that.

 

[Giroro]

Who in nVIDIA marketing thought this "4080 16 GB" & "4080 12 GB" naming scheme was a good idea?

Jensen Huang should fire them for this debacle.

It was a unnecessary stain on the companies reputation and 100% self inflicted wound.

The worst part is, if nVIDIA let this confusing naming scheme go on, it could've led to a long term class-action law suit for deceptive business practices.

Something nVIDIA wants to avoid.

We all remember the 3.5 GB VRAM controversy from back in the day and how there was a class action lawsuit over that 0.5 GB of useless VRAM.

Why would Jensen Huang fire himself? He's making money for the company and himself hand over fist. Investors love the never-ending price hikes. If the card comes back as a 4070 with a $700 price tag, then they've made it "look" like a major discount, despite a $200 price hike over last gen.

And here's the thing. It won't come back with a significant discount. Monopolies don't work that way. They'll come back and say "well the card is the same, and now it costs even more to produce because of the rebrand. We still need to make those unheard of 75 points of profit, so be grateful we didn't raise the price even higher."
If customers say "the RTX 4070 is a bad value, I'll buy a 4080 instead" They think that's good. They want that. From the beginning, they've designed their prices to trick you into being upsold, on purpose. A sticker on the box doesn't change the math.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why would Jensen Huang fire himself? He's making money for the company and himself hand over fist. Investors love the never-ending price hikes. If the card comes back as a 4070 with a $700 price tag, then they've made it "look" like a major discount, despite a $200 price hike over last gen.

And here's the thing. It won't come back with a significant discount. Monopolies don't work that way. They'll come back and say "well the card is the same, and now it costs even more to produce because of the rebrand. We still need to make those unheard of 75 points of profit, so be grateful we didn't raise the price even higher."
If customers say "the RTX 4070 is a bad value, I'll buy a 4080 instead" They think that's good. They want that. From the beginning, they've designed their prices to trick you into being upsold, on purpose. A sticker on the box doesn't change the math.

I don't think it's coincidence that AMD is also launching RDNA 3 GPUs next month. We'll see what those bring to the table, but it's possible Nvidia got enough additional information about its main competitors plans that it knows the $899 RTX 4080 12GB wasn't going to fly.

All indications are that AMD will have an RX 7950 XT with 24GB of GDDR6 18Gbps memory as the top SKU, with an RX 7900 XT as well that may or may not have 24GB. With significantly more shader cores, and without using a bunch of transistor space on tensor core equivalents, don't be surprised if AMD's native performance ends up being very competitive with RTX 40-series. I would be surprised if AMD goes higher than $1199 on the RX 7950 XT, which means it could already have a better price to performance ratio. Take a small step down to a $999 RX 7900 XT that still has 20GB of VRAM and the RTX 4080 12GB would look pathetic. Probably the 7950 XT will also have 192MB of L3 cache, while the 7900 XT 'only' gets 80MB.

Maybe that doesn't happen, but right now it's absolutely possible that it does. Nvidia isn't stupid, and it might just be better to unlaunch a product that it knows will need a major price adjustment by the time it arrives. Bring out the popcorn, because next month is going to be fun!

 

[USAFRet]

As my eyes scrolled down the list of threads, I saw:
"North Korean CEO..."

wait, what???

 

[Giroro]

I don't think it's coincidence that AMD is also launching RDNA 3 GPUs next month. We'll see what those bring to the table, but it's possible Nvidia got enough additional information about its main competitors plans that it knows the $899 RTX 4080 12GB wasn't going to fly.

All indications are that AMD will have an RX 7950 XT with 24GB of GDDR6 18Gbps memory as the top SKU, with an RX 7900 XT as well that may or may not have 24GB. With significantly more shader cores, and without using a bunch of transistor space on tensor core equivalents, don't be surprised if AMD's native performance ends up being very competitive with RTX 40-series. I would be surprised if AMD goes higher than $1199 on the RX 7950 XT, which means it could already have a better price to performance ratio. Take a small step down to a $999 RX 7900 XT that still has 20GB of VRAM and the RTX 4080 12GB would look pathetic. Probably the 7950 XT will also have 192MB of L3 cache, while the 7900 XT 'only' gets 80MB.

Maybe that doesn't happen, but right now it's absolutely possible that it does. Nvidia isn't stupid, and it might just be better to unlaunch a product that it knows will need a major price adjustment by the time it arrives. Bring out the popcorn, because next month is going to be fun!

Maybe AMD will really bring it this time. Nvidia rarely acts like they care what AMD is doing, though. I don't know if it was a production issue, or what, but I would think AMD would be making a lot of noise if RDNA2 had been a big boost to their market share.

 

[hotaru251]

In short, Kim Seung-gyu said that the name of the RTX 4080 12GB was "confusing" compared to the RTX 4080 16GB, because the latter offered significantly more performance.

becasue this is 1st time you've done it?


done it at least twice before.
forget 1st one but 2nd was the 1060 3gb vs 6gb.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Why would Jensen Huang fire himself? He's making money for the company and himself hand over fist. Investors love the never-ending price hikes. If the card comes back as a 4070 with a $700 price tag, then they've made it "look" like a major discount, despite a $200 price hike over last gen.

And here's the thing. It won't come back with a significant discount. Monopolies don't work that way. They'll come back and say "well the card is the same, and now it costs even more to produce because of the rebrand. We still need to make those unheard of 75 points of profit, so be grateful we didn't raise the price even higher."
If customers say "the RTX 4070 is a bad value, I'll buy a 4080 instead" They think that's good. They want that. From the beginning, they've designed their prices to trick you into being upsold, on purpose. A sticker on the box doesn't change the math.

Anybody who thinks there is a "Price discount" coming with the rename is delusional.
That original MSRP price for the 4080 12GB is the price that Jensen wants to set, he can do whatever he wants, but I doubt he's going to budge.

Doesn't matter if he changes the name of the "4080 12GB" to:
4070
4070 Ti
4070 SUPER
4070 <New Suffix>

Jensen is literally going to wear his leather jacket, put on sun glasses and tell people to "Get Over It" and accept his new pricing.

Pray that Jensen doesn't raise the MSRP on the new video cards again.

The price is HIGHLY unlikely to change, especially given the glut of RTX 30 series & RDNA2 cards + RTX40 series inbound & RDNA3 card inbound.

Don't forget the used mining cards are going to flood the used Video Card market, driving prices down.

So it's a buyers market and Jensen isn't going to give up his SWEET PHAT Profit margins.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

becasue this is 1st time you've done it?


done it at least twice before.
forget 1st one but 2nd was the 1060 3gb vs 6gb.

1060 3GB was about 90% of the 1060 6GB performance, unless you happened to exceed the 3GB VRAM capacity. Which wasn't really that big of a problem in 2016 but is now quite limiting.
4080 12GB would be 82% of the compute offered by the 4080 16GB, but 70% of the memory bandwidth. And with a 192-bit interface compared to 256-bit, it's no surprise that bandwidth can be a limiting factor.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Maybe that doesn't happen, but right now it's absolutely possible that it does. Nvidia isn't stupid, and it might just be better to unlaunch a product that it knows will need a major price adjustment by the time it arrives. Bring out the popcorn, because next month is going to be fun!

I don't think the pricing will change, the name will change, but not the MSRP that Jensen originally set out.
$900 MSRP for the "4080 12GB" -> "4070 / 4070 Ti / 4070 SUPER" (Jensen will probably pick Ti/SUPER" since this is supposed to be a Perfect Die without getting binned down.

Jensen will have "2x Words for you. SUCK IT!!!".

Then he'll walk off-stage to the "D-Generation X" Entrance music licensed from WWE.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

So it's a buyers market and Jensen isn't going to give up his SWEET PHAT Profit margins.

You do realize that "buyers' market" and "sweet profits" are not the same thing, right? If it were a sellers' market, that's when you can charge whatever you want.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

You do realize that "buyers' market" and "sweet profits" are not the same thing, right? If it were a sellers' market, that's when you can charge whatever you want.

According to the Hub-bub BtS (Behind the Scenes), nVIDIA's AIB partners have over 1 years worth of RTX 30 inventory that they bought at Crypto Mining Boom prices that they need to off-load.

This doesn't even factor in the flood of used Mining cards from Asia & Scalper's left over inventory here in NA.

Jensen doesn't have the leeway to sell his RTX 40 cards at a lower cost.

Then there's TSMC's expensive 4N process node, I've estimate that it comes close to ~$22k per waffer and his GPU chips aren't small.

So Jensen can't afford to lower prices anyways, and his investor wants that sweet PHAT margins, so he has to keep the MSRP high, no matter what.

If he lowers the price too much, nVIDIA's partners will go into the Red and have too much inventory sitting around, not being sold, if they sell below cost, they lose money.

It's a crappy situation that nVIDIA brought on themselves due to the Crypto-Mining Boom and the AIB's have to suffer the brunt of it.

Jensen already made his money off the RTX 30-series, now he needs even PHAT-er margins for the RTX 40-series.

Making new GPU's ain't getting cheaper.

And the newer beefier coolers that are larger & have more cooling mass, that ain't cheap.

On top of global shipping prices that are still really bad.

What do you expect Jensen Huang to do, take a loss in profits?

LOL, NOPE, not going to happen. So guess what, higher prices are here to stay.

Jensen Huang can never have enough Leather Jackets or Spatulas.

 

[Math Geek]

none of it will matter. buyers have shown they will buy no matter what the price is.

look even now, nvidia is at least $100 more for a comparable card from last gen and even more at the top end. yet people are still buying nvidia based on what? wishful thinking.

sure some will complain and some will go with the better buy, but past and recent history has shown us that buyers are pretty much stupid and will buy whatever they put out and whatever price. all to check an extra box in the game settings and pretend shiny hair somehow makes their game "better" lol

it does not matter what a review says, or whether it is a good buy or not. look at the 3050 going for more than a 6600 which is comparable to the 3060, yet it sells well even coming very late to the game. some of us know, but even among those most will still buy it cause..... well i don't know why really....

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

According to the Hub-bub BtS (Behind the Scenes), nVIDIA's AIB partners have over 1 years worth of RTX 30 inventory that they bought at Crypto Mining Boom prices that they need to off-load.
...
Then there's TSMC's expensive 4N process node, I've estimate that it comes close to ~$22k per wafer and his GPU chips aren't small.

This is true, which is exactly why it's a BUYERS' market. There's an excess of inventory that is going down in value. The AIBs may have paid high prices for it, but Nvidia's own statements are that it expects supply to be higher than demand through Q4 of the fiscal year. Nvidia's fiscal year is basically aligned with the calendar year, however, which means January-ish is when it expects demand to catch up to supply.

Furthermore, if Nvidia's partners ALREADY paid for the inventory, it's no sweat to Nvidia if prices drop. That's PRECISELY WHY EVGA has "taken its ball and gone home." But the AIBs made massive profits on GPUs throughput 2020 and 2021, and even into the start of 2022, so they can certainly absorb some losses.

Finally, $22,000 per 4N wafer is probably what a small startup would pay if they wanted to do some chips on that node. Nvidia, who will be ordering tens of thousands of wafers, is not going to pay such prices, not even close. I'd estimate at best Nvidia is paying $15,000. If it were the upcoming N3 node, maybe $22,000 would be closer, but it's not — it's a revision of N5 5nm tech that has been out for two years now. Apple's A14 Bionic chip was shipping in quantity since October 2020.

Even at $22,000 per wafer, though, what does that mean? Well, that would mean about 90 chips per wafer, or a cost per chip of $244. For the AD103 chips, that would be about 148 chips per wafer and just $150 per chip. Nvidia could easily sell RTX 4090 at $999 and still make a profit, or RTX 4080 at $700 and make a profit. It won't because it can get much more than that for the GPUs, but it could. Unless AMD can come out with something so competitive that it forces prices down.

 

[Phaaze88]

Gimme a B! Gimme a U! Gimme a L! Gimme another L!
Y'all get the rest...

You know, some posts in the 'Unlaunched' thread got me losing my mind...
The x90 moniker has allowed Nvidia to move the goalposts. Excluding 4090 and 3090, the last time x90 appeared was the GTX 690, a dual gpu card. It also existed alongside Titans, the 'Poor Man's Quadro'.
[x90 is not Titan.]
I figure the x90 was a real hassle(more so than SLI), because it faded from existence shortly after.

After Kepler, x80Ti would become the halo and the Titan would continue - up until Turing...
[I guess one can look at Titan as halo, but the driver support isn't exactly the same as the other Geforces...]
30 series arrived, but Titan vanished(!) and x90 came back with an x90 Ti, but neither was of a dual gpu design(!). They have 24GBs of Vram, which would be far more useful on a Titan.


So, what if:
4090 is actually a 4080 with one hell of a price tag(you know the 4090Ti[4080Ti] is coming later),
4080 16GB is a 1200USD 4070,
and 4080 12 GB is a 4060(pricing to be determined)...

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

This is true, which is exactly why it's a BUYERS' market. There's an excess of inventory that is going down in value. The AIBs may have paid high prices for it, but Nvidia's own statements are that it expects supply to be higher than demand through Q4 of the fiscal year. Nvidia's fiscal year is basically aligned with the calendar year, however, which means January-ish is when it expects demand to catch up to supply.

There's also alot more RICH folks who have money to part and will pay over inflated prices, that proves to Jensen that there are people who will pay that kind of money for even more performance.

Furthermore, if Nvidia's partners ALREADY paid for the inventory, it's no sweat to Nvidia if prices drop. That's PRECISELY WHY EVGA has "taken its ball and gone home." But the AIBs made massive profits on GPUs throughput 2020 and 2021, and even into the start of 2022, so they can certainly absorb some losses.

Everything I've heard, AIB's profit margins are pretty slim. nVIDIA is making most of the profits.

Finally, $22,000 per 4N wafer is probably what a small startup would pay if they wanted to do some chips on that node. Nvidia, who will be ordering tens of thousands of wafers, is not going to pay such prices, not even close. I'd estimate at best Nvidia is paying $15,000. If it were the upcoming N3 node, maybe $22,000 would be closer, but it's not — it's a revision of N5 5nm tech that has been out for two years now. Apple's A14 Bionic chip was shipping in quantity since October 2020.

From what I've heard, after last generation where Jensen Huang tried to play TSMC against Samsung for a discount and TSMC's CEO laughed and told him to go to Samsung.
The rest is history.

The two CEO's aren't on great terms.

And TSMC's CEO isn't giving Jensen any discounts, no matter the volume and made him pay "Up Front" for all his waffer allocation.

nVIDIA doesn't get Apple/AMD favored partner status.

Especially after the numerous shenanigans that Jensen pulled in the past against TSMC.

Remember, TSMC recently raised prices on it's Waffers. That cost will go straight to the customer.

Jensen paid upfront for his allocation, it's not like he didn't want the process node advantage, that's why he got TSMC 4N, a custom 5nm node for nVIDIA.

Even at $22,000 per wafer, though, what does that mean? Well, that would mean about 90 chips per wafer, or a cost per chip of $244. For the AD103 chips, that would be about 148 chips per wafer and just $150 per chip. Nvidia could easily sell RTX 4090 at $999 and still make a profit, or RTX 4080 at $700 and make a profit. It won't because it can get much more than that for the GPUs, but it could. Unless AMD can come out with something so competitive that it forces prices down.

nVIDIA will make it's PHAT Profit Margins. I gurantee you that won't ever change.
The issue is the cost of the rest of the components and how much profit margin AIB's are allowed.

Remember nVIDIA controls ALOT more than just selling the GPU & RAM

• they approve of ALL nVIDIA related packaging
• they approve of Pricing Ceilings for all cards
• they also institute a Price Floor as well

nVIDIA AIB's have a VERY narrow ledge to walk upon.

 

[SydB]

As my eyes scrolled down the list of threads, I saw:
"North Korean CEO..."

wait, what???

Glad I'm not the only one who saw that. This is before I poured any alcohol I hasten to add.

 

[RodroX]

"...the card's name was confusing"

RTX 3080 10GB
RTX 3080 12GB

I rest my case, cya!

 

[thisisaname]

"...the card's name was confusing"

RTX 3080 10GB
RTX 3080 12GB

I rest my case, cya!

Aye no need to bring up the other times they have done the same thing. Indeed the rumour mill is saying they are about to release a new version of the 3060 with different memory, I wonder if the will change the name avoid confusion.

 

[Unolocogringo]

In the beginning !

Memory capacity was a common performance differentiator.
I had a couple cards with 2mb soldered memory and 2 mb socketed memory.
Then they started making 8&16mb versions of soldered cards. No more sockets.
We even had them up through the 10xx series cards.

So don't act surprised like this is something new.
It is just another tool to segment performance tiers.
This one was a little off. Before the 10xx series they were the same die just different memory capacity.
Who knows , marketing might have won out over the engineers again.💩

 

[alceryes]

"We at Nvidia deny accusations that we got caught trying to mislead consumers. We are just clarifying a misunderstanding consumers had about our products."

If they really want to clear up ANY misunderstanding, they'll drop the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB prices by $500 each.

 

[tamalero]

Who in nVIDIA marketing thought this "4080 16 GB" & "4080 12 GB" naming scheme was a good idea?

Jensen Huang should fire them for this debacle.

It was a unnecessary stain on the companies reputation and 100% self inflicted wound.

The worst part is, if nVIDIA let this confusing naming scheme go on, it could've led to a long term class-action law suit for deceptive business practices.

Something nVIDIA wants to avoid.

We all remember the 3.5 GB VRAM controversy from back in the day and how there was a class action lawsuit over that 0.5 GB of useless VRAM.

ACCOUNTANTS obviously.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

ACCOUNTANTS obviously.

If they're responsible, they deserved to be fired for this inept decision that unnecessarily tarnishes the companies reputation for no good reason.