It is already known that the RTX 4060 GPUs including both Ti and the non-Ti editions are going to feature 8GB VRAM. However, there seems to be a shift in the original plan.
According to the leak by Twitter user @Zed__Wang who said that a new 4060 Ti with 16GB is also added to the roster and now there are a total of 3 different 4060 GPUs planned to launch in the next few months.
Unfortunately, the 16GB edition is not going to be released before July and the same goes for 4060. Even though all three GPUs are going to be announced this month, only the 8GB edition of the 4060 Ti will be launched first.
According to Videocardz, the 4060 Ti 8GB is planned to launch on 24th May, a day before the launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 7600.
Now, the biggest problem Nvidia is going to face is pricing. As it was already rumored that the 4060 Ti with 8GB is going to launch for $400-$450, seeing the community’s reaction, it is likely that Nvidia is going to launch this GPU for no more than $350.
This will make it easier for Nvidia to launch the 16GB edition for $450 as it becomes more appealing than the $600 4070. However, there are still a few problems that among which is the small memory bus width of 128-bit bus on the 4060 Ti which is absolutely horrible to have on a 16GB GPU.
This only gives it little advantage over the 8GB edition as the memory bandwidth remains the same. The advantage is that now in games that require more than 8GB VRAM, the frequent stuttering will be eliminated.
This new change in memory also makes the RTX 4070 totally unattractive and in order to make the 4070 appealing again, Nvidia has to increase its VRAM. The problem, however, is that it features a bus width of just 192-bit which is a big problem for Nvidia as the 4070 cannot have 16GB VRAM.
The only solution is to change its GPU chip and this is exactly what Kopite just tweeted that the 4070 can have a version based on AD103 which is the chip used in the RTX 4080. This will give the 4070 a 256-bit memory bus and the 4070 can finally have 16GB of VRAM.
RTX 4070 can have a version based on AD103.
— kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) May 9, 2023
But this further escalates the problem for Nvidia because even if it increases the production cost for 4070, it cannot be priced at more than $600. That said, users who have already bought 4070 12GB are definitely going to be felt betrayed by that but this is how it is.
Considering how it is going, I think Nvidia won’t be able to price the RTX 4050 for more than $200 and it must price it even lower because there are several options available for $200-$250 that would make the 4050 stand on the same platform as the 3050.
