What you need to know
- Not everyone is happy with NVIDIA's latest product line-up, the GeForce RTX 40 series of GPUs.
- As well as considerable pricing backlash, people have taken to social media to create and share countless memes.
- Grab a brew, sit back, and enjoy the show.
Why is the GeForce RTX 40 series disappointing?
We haven't had any playtime with the new graphics cards from NVIDIA just yet, but already people are showcasing just how irritated they are with the specifications and pricing of the new cards. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series of GPUs is the next generation for Team Green, promising vastly improved performance at various price points.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently claimed "Moore's law is dead," during a recent virtual press session Windows Central attended. "And the ability for Moore's Law to deliver twice the performance at the same cost, or at the same performance and half the cost, every year and a half is over. It's completely over."
The company likely isn't telling a fib when it comes to the cost of manufacturing the 40 series cards. The pandemic, lockdowns, and global shortage of components have not been helpful, nor likely has the return to TMSC as its manufacturing partner. For the GeForce RTX 30 series, NVIDIA partnered with Samsung.
It's no secret that NVIDIA has a lot of RTX 30 series cards in stock, which the company will need to get rid of, and prices have already dropped. This likely has an effect on the MSRP it's able to set for the new RTX 40 series, carefully positioning both generations next to one another. And for now, there's not really much choice for gamers who want the latest NVIDIA GPU.
The GeForce RTX 4090 is the current flagship, followed by not one but two RTX 4080 cards. One has 16GB of RAM and the other 12GB. There are also differences in the number of cores, clock speeds, and other specifications. Many believe the lesser capable RTX 4080 should in fact be an RTX 4070. Then there's the size of these GPUs, especially from AIB partners.
Let's take the mighty ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO (quite a mouthful). This monster has a width of 3.5 PCI slots. That's right, you're set to lose four PCI slots on your case (and potentially the motherboard) by using this GPU. Other AIB cards don't differ much in size. It's safe to say that not everyone is happy with NVIDIA right now.
Lastly, RIP EVGA.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series memes
There has been an avalanche of memes for NVIDIA's RTX 40 series launch. We're going to round up some of our favorites right here. Reddit user homiecydxl posted the following meme to the PC Master Racer subreddit, perfectly representing just what everyone expects NVIDIA to announce in due course.
Next up is Reddit user CrashedTestDumy who compiled a list of all the fastest graphics cards NVIDIA has released with a 192-bit memory bus. They're all a x60 GPU, except for one that's quite clearly the odd one out and it's not the GeForce GTX 660. (Hint: it's the 12GB GeForce RTX 4080!)
Finally, we've got this meme posted by Reddit user TohsakaRinya. It likely encapsulates precisely how NVIDIA's marketing team sees its customers, at least from the point of view of PC gamers.
We're going to have the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series in for review soon. So stay tuned to Windows Central for some more in-depth coverage as we try to discern whether the RTX 40 series' reality aligns with NVIDIA's claims.
