As supply of Nvidia’s new 30-series graphics cards still struggles to meet demand, the GPU manufacturer is now looking to release more stock of its older cards into the market. A report by PC World has confirmed that Nvidia will be releasing more stock of the RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti to its board partners to help cover demand.
While the brand-new 30-series GPUs are at the forefront of the graphics card shortages, it’s difficult to buy any graphics card right now, with prices on older boards often inflated well above their launch prices. The RTX 2060, for example, is listed between $750 and $800 on Newegg, well above its original launch price of $350 in January 2019.
The choice in re-released boards is strategic, with the older boards not requiring the parts that are rumored to be causing manufacturing bottlenecks for new-generation cards and consoles. As the PC World report points out, the 2016 GTX 1050 Ti also lacks the required amount of dedicated video memory to mine the popular cryptocurrency Ethereum, meaning the new stock won’t be snapped up by crypto miners before gamers can get to it.
In a statement sent to PC World, Nvidia said: “The [GeForce RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti] were never EOLed [end-of-lifed]. So ‘reviving’ seems like the wrong terminology to use here. More of an ebb and flow really. We’re just meeting market demand which remains extremely high as you noted.”
The cheapest card in Nvidia’s new series, the RTX 3060, is due to release in February for $330, though it will likely be subject to the same price inflation and supply issues as the other cards in the series.
