- I just heard Nvidia got a sick,
a new GPU for us to play with.
Well, what part of that is wrong?
Do we not get it?
Or is there no new GPU? (somber music)
- Yes.
Wait, oh, this is the RTX 2060 relaunch, isn't it?
- Yep.
- But why?
- Think if I now, do you want to talk about it?
- Yes I do.
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(upbeat music)
- Nvidia new old stock GPU uses the same
core layout as the RTX 2060 super.
But instead of that GPU's
eight gigabyte memory configuration,
they're bumping it up to
12 gigabytes of GDDR6.
At first glance that might sound like a decent upgrade,
but there's more to the story than
just the size of the frame buffer alone.
The available memory bandwidth is still being stifled
by the original RTX 2060s, 192 BYD Bus.
So in that respect,
it's actually a step back from the RTX 2060 super.
That means this card should perform somewhere between
the OG 2060 and the super variant
rather than surpassing them.
Unless you have a specific need for the extra video memory.
- And you just might.
To account for newer titles coming out
with bigger and more varied assets
Nvidia would have seen fit to give the RTX 2060,
some extra juice in the caboose;
not to mention the marketing benefits.
12 gigs puts them on par with AMD who has for some time been
criticizing Nvidia's lower-end cards
for their smaller frame buffers.
If nothing else,
at least it helps to ensure that
anyone who's buying one of these RTX 2060s,
isn't stuck with all of the limitations
of a three-year-old design.
Obviously you're not going to be
cranking the visuals on these cards,
but you're also not going to be
scrambling to upgrade again in a year or so.
Mm Maybe.
- We'd love to verify that,
but we certainly can't today.
Not only has Nvidia canned the founder's edition
that they briefly listed on their website,
but we didn't get a card to review.
And they haven't been talking to the press either;
us included.
As far as we could tell this card was still a
maybe on the horizon rumor as recently as last week.
There's two ways you could look at this.
First, obviously we already know
pretty much how the RTX 2060 performs.
So reviews, aren't likely to reveal anything mind blowing.
Maybe they felt it wasn't worth bothering.
The second is more troubling.
As of writing, I have no idea how much it costs.
Each board partner is going to have their own skews
with their own pricing
and Nvidia hasn't announced a baseline
MSRP like they usually would.
Instead opting for the cryptic,
it's a premium product,
So it'll be priced accordingly line.
It could be that this card will be very expensive.
And they're trying to get out in front
of a negative news cycle full of inevitable comparisons
to the 30 series launch MSRPs.
- And to be fair to Nvidia,
there's no real benefit to tech press
and subsequently consumers yelling at them
about how their MSRP doesn't exist,
when it's inevitably higher for most partner boards.
Now we've talked at length about why MSRP has been rising
and why the MSRPs is that many GPUs
originally launched at are functionally extinct.
But the TLDR is that it's a combination
of the ongoing chip shortage,
raw materials skyrocketing,
and price thanks to COVID recovery,
and speculation and just plain and simple supply and demand.
It's becoming more expensive just to get the chips,
let alone, put it all together
and this cost isn't going away anytime soon.
Nvidia sells GPUs to everyone else
so that they can eat that cost then.
The partners don't have the luxury
of selling loss leaders.
- [Anthony] Oh, this is interesting.
I just got a response from a Asus.
Apparently they don't know what the MSRP is yet.
- I'd love to say that surprising,
but I just don't think it is.
- That Nvidia won't commit to a MSRP
could be seen as a small mercy
or another way of messing with their partners.
Whatever the case partners won't have to do much
to both everyone off and sell all their stock at once.
The fact of the matter is that
both the RTX 2060s launched at 349
and the RTX 3060 that's supposed
to replace it launched at 329.
If the price ends up being anything higher than that,
r/hardware is going to lose their minds;
whether it's justified or not.
It feels like Nvidia is hanging partners out to dry again.
While they continue to enjoy the positive perception of
reasonable MSRP on their cards,
their board partners have no hope of matching
with this release or any other,
either in terms of price or performance.
We'll have them linked down below once they're available,
but I'm not hopeful will be a good deal.
- Though, as unpopular as this take might be,
it'll still be a bargain at least at off the shelf prices
compared to scalper RTX 2060 prices on eBay.
I mean, look at this.
They are regularly selling for more than 500 to $600,
depending on whether it's the super variant of the card.
And whoever bought this one for over 800 U.S dollars,
must've been pretty desperate.
(upbeat music)
The people buying these scalped secondary market cards
are the people who will benefit the most.
They've clearly already accepted that
they're going to have to shell out flagship money
for a less than flagship experience
and more cards on the market means that
there's less pressure for these second hand GPUs.
I mean it's really a win-win for consumers
as far as I'm concerned.
Just like our new Swacket it on lttstore.com.
Heavier than a sweater and lighter than a jacket.
Everyone wins.
- Except not really.
if Nvidia has been holding onto these GPUs
because they couldn't sell them before now,
then this is more of a positive for them
than for anyone else.
And it means that these GPUs have a finer quantity.
- I don't think that's true.
Nvidia would have sold remaining stock for cheap
or to a system integrator for pre-built
or what have you before now.
Remember the 7900 GTO?
Those were basically 7900 GTX chips
that were perfectly fine,
but deprecated by the outstanding 8800 series.
Besides there's no way that they'd have enough surplus
to launch a whole new skew at this point,
across their entire range of partners.
7900 GTO, as you might recall,
was MSI and EVG exclusively due to its limited quantities.
Now Turing RTX 20 series.
Was produced on TSMC is 12 nanometer node.
And more likely what's happening is Nvidia is utilizing
otherwise idle production because you got to remember guys,
even though TSMC offers seven nanometer
and five nanometer for cutting edge products
and is working on ramping three nanometer,
they haven't necessarily just taken their last gin
old equipment and hocked it in a bin.
Due to the large upfront investment,
that kind of stuff ends up
getting phased out very gradually.
I mean, even AMD's flagship X70 chip set
is still using 14 nanometer because it's economical.
So if no other GPUs are being produced
on 12 nanometer right now,
any new capacity that Nvidia gets
out of those fabs is new capacity,
as far as the GPU market is concerned.
And I think they made the right call
going with the RTX 2060 super cores as well because
assuming that they're going to be using the
relatively small TU106 Die,
they should be able to get more good Die per way for
than they would with something like a
2070 super redux or something along those lines.
- Okay.
This is starting to make sense,
except for the fact that Nvidia is bundling these GPUs
with 12 gigabytes of GDDR6.
GDDR6 was a large part of the production bottleneck
that played both Nvidia and AMD
through the 2020 and 2021 phases of this shortage.
And I haven't found any evidence to suggest
that things are so much better,
now that a relief skew like this
can reliably use so much memory.
12 gigs at 192 bit means
that we're looking at 616 gigabit Dies,
the exact same layout of the RTX 3060.
Well, this might have been done
so partners could use the same or similar PCBs.
It means that this memory is not going into RTX 3060
production or RPX 3050 production.
Which is expected sometime in early 2022.
Get subscribed so you don't miss our coverage
with that card when it launches.
- I can only assume that they have their reasons.
Clearly Nvidia knows more about supply chain management
than we do at this point,
or indeed than they did when they launched
the 8800 series all those years ago.
It did seem that around summer of this year,
demand for GDDR6 had fallen in comparison with supply.
So who knows, and on the subject of lessons learned,
it does say a lot about the mature way that Nvidia
is handling this by straight up calling this card
what it is 2060 12 Gig.
Remember how Nvidia rebranded Fermi
and then later Kepler into two generations each?
I mean, we got new GPUs with new names,
but they were the same bloody thing.
It's stupid that they have to get
a gold star for calling a spade a spade in this industry,
but here we are.
And as long as the logistics do work out,
this is going to be a net benefit to the overall
availability of graphics cards for at least a little while;
which is good for everyone.
- Just as long as long as we don't go back
much further than this.
I had a dream the other night that Nvidia
re-released the GTX 780 and everyone
(Linus laughs) was happy about it.
I mean, 28 nanometer, is it even less utilized
node these days, right?
So...
- I don't think that dreams coming true anytime soon.
Re-releasing an older GPU is only remotely feasible
because we are in such desperate circumstances.
And because the process node for that GPU
is still in production and maybe
not fully tapped by other industries.
It certainly carries with it some challenges.
Like the fact that Nvidia might have to
continue to support 20 series cards for much longer
than they might have originally planned
in order to maintain their reputation
for industry leading long-term driver support.
This move then, requires some lateral thinking
on the part of both Nvidia and prospective buyers.
Hey, it's not going to be for everyone,
but we live in interesting times
and the market is clearly there for this class of GPU.
I just hope that the power consumption per hash rate
is not appealing enough to make it appealing
because I doubt they respond it for
a light hash rate version.
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Thanks for watching guys. (upbeat music)
Go check out our video on how I was right
that you should have built a PC back in 2019,
but for all the wrong reasons.
Yep, we all lost the game,
but there's more info about the shortage
and prices in there that might help
to make some sense of these troubled times.