A fresh leak has apparently confirmed the release date of Nvidia’s midrange RTX 4070 Ti graphics card – the GPU formerly known as the RTX 4080 12GB.
The 12GB model of the RTX 4080 was hastily unlaunched less than two days after the release of the new flagship RTX 4090, following complaints that Nvidia was misleading consumers by giving it the same name as the RTX 4080 16GB, despite the fact that it actually used a less powerful GPU chip, rather than simply having 4GB less VRAM.
The new leak, which comes from known hardware leaker MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang (opens in new tab) on Twitter), showcases what appears to be some box art for the Founders Edition of the GPU, with a list of features. There’s nothing new to see here – it’s all stuff the existing RTX 4000 cards are already packing.
More interestingly, MEGAsizeGPU states in the tweet that the rebranded graphics card will be available (presumably for consumers to buy) from January 5. We don’t know where they got this information, so take it with a hearty pinch of salt. However, the date coincides with CES 2023, where Nvidia is sure to be in attendance, and it looks like Nvidia might be revealing the GPU and launching it on the same day.
Opinion: the release date isn’t as important as the price tag
There’s just one thing about this leak that bothers me: I don’t care. The release window is more or less irrelevant right now – at least until we know the launch dates of AMD’s competing midrange Radeon RX 7000 cards. Both Nvidia and AMD have forged ahead with revealing their respective high-end flagship GPUs, which are super expensive.
Yes, price is the thing that really matters here. The best graphics cards can cost a pretty penny, so it’s hard to muster any enthusiasm for $1,000-plus GPUs when the previous generation’s midrange cards are still perfectly good for everyday gaming.
Until official pricing for this reanimated RTX 4070 Ti (a much more appropriate name, I will concede) is revealed by Nvidia, I won’t be getting excited. Team Green could be in an awkward catch-22 position here; if its sticks with the original $899 price tag it’s sure to be panned by critics and consumers alike, but reducing the price could leave a wide gap between the new GPU and the $1,199 RTX 4080 – ripe soil for AMD’s $899 and $999 flagships to dominate.
Speculation is already rife over the RTX 4070 Ti’s potential price point, with people hopefully suggesting a $699 list price in MEGAsizeGPU’s tweet replies. For reference, the last-gen RTX 3070 Ti cost $599 at launch. This means that a $699 price tag would be in line with the RTX 4090’s generational price rise of a hundred bucks, although the RTX 4080 16GB’s generational price increase is a whopping $500.
Personally, I think we’re more likely to see a price around or just below the $800 mark. This would be a reasonable move for Nvidia, if not an outright win for consumers. I consistently recommend any of our favorite cheap GPUs over any card that costs more than $800, so if Nvidia could keep the price within that margin, the RTX 4070 Ti could be a great midrange card for 4K gaming.