Nvidia is “unlaunching” the 12GB 4080 as it’s “not named right”

Nvidia has announced that it is going to be “unlaunching” the RTX 4080 12GB graphics card due to criticisms over the way it has been named.

In a blog post on the Nvidia website, the company says it will unlaunch the “fantastic” graphics card, as it’s “not named right”. “Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing,” said Nvidia in the post.

It is therefore going to “unlaunch” the 4080 12GB, but says that the RTX 4080 16GB is on track to “delight gamers everywhere” when it releases on November 16. The company had originally intended to release both graphics cards at the same time with entirely different specs, but it has now u-turned on that decision and will not be releasing the lower-spec card at this time.

From the name alone, users would have found it easy to assume that there were two models of the same card with different memory configurations, but the rest of the specifications are different too.

Other differences included a 192-bit memory bus versus a 256-bit memory bus in the 16GB version, alongside 285W graphics card power versus 320W in the version that is still set to release next month.

Following the release, it’s now likely that the card that was once going to be the RTX 4080 12GB will be relaunched as an RTX 4070, although there has been no timeframe given for that by Nvidia in the concise blog post.

In other news, Pokémon Sword and Shield will receive one final update on November 1, and will then receive no further content. The news comes as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet gear up to release on November 18, which will see The Pokémon Company shift focus to its new game. The update will feature one final Wild News Area event which will add previously unavailable Pokémon such as Gigantimax Snorlax.