Nvidia wants a head start in the next GPU war, but it’s still haunted by the RTX 4080
It looks like Nvidia is already thinking about its future GPUs, but CEO Jensen Huang’s recent visit to Taiwan came in the shadow of the rather embarrassing RTX 4080 12GB drama, which saw the company announce the GPU just weeks after launch pulled off dramatically.
As HotHardware reports, (opens in new tab) During his stay in Taiwan, Huang apparently visited the headquarters of TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), one of the largest chip makers in the world, which makes chips for companies such as Nvidia, Apple and AMD. The aim of this visit seems to be to ensure that Nvidia is at the top of the list to get the company’s forthcoming 3nm process.
In general, smaller chips are more efficient and can be used to create more powerful products. This new 3nm process could allow Nvidia to add more cores to its lineup of GPUs in the future, and it could be a deciding factor in determining the winner of the next generation of GPUs. The fact that TSMC also makes chips for Nvidia’s competitors explains why Huang was so keen on going on the charm offensive.
If successful, Nvidia’s next generation of 3nm GPUs could deliver a significant performance boost over the new RTX 4000 “Lovelace” series, which recently launched with the RTX 4090 and is based on TSMC’s 5nm process.
However, it’s another Lovelace card, the recently “unlaunched” RTX 4080 12GB, that cast a shadow over Huang’s journey.
apology tour
Not only is Taiwan home to TSMC, but a large number of technology companies are headquartered there, including third-party GPU manufacturers such as Gigabyte, Asus, and EVGA.
According to HotHardware, Huang appears to have visited some of these while he was in Taiwan, and it was likely less of an informal meeting with partners — and more a point of damage control. As we reported a while ago, Nvidia’s decision to delay the launch of the RTX 4080 12GB at such short notice (while the more powerful RTX 4080 16GB is still on track to launch in November) is not just one Blow for Nvidia – but it’s also impacting third-party GPU manufacturers, many of whom have already made their spins on the RTX 4080 12GB, along with branding, packaging and promotional materials with a GPU that no longer exists.
So Nvidia is clearly interested in making up for this inconvenience. For its part, the company has promised to compensate its partners for the RTX 4080 12GB, and it’s likely that that’s one of the reasons why Nvidia’s CEO went to their headquarters in person (if the reports are correct, of course).
Those meetings were perhaps a little tense as Nvidia’s relationship with its partners seems to have been quite strained lately, with EVGA recently announcing that it is retiring from manufacturing GPUs despite its cards being such a large revenue stream for the company company and blames Nvidia’s treatment of its partners as the reason for this.
Has Haung’s recent tour helped smooth things out? We certainly hope so – as more companies make their own models of Nvidia GPUs, it means more choices for gamers and potentially more products for our best graphics cards list.
https://www.techradar.com/news/nvidia-wants-a-head-start-in-the-next-gpu-war-but-its-still-haunted-by-the-rtx-4080 Nvidia wants a head start in the next GPU war, but it’s still haunted by the RTX 4080
