The reveal and release dates for the new RTX 40-series Super cards have been leaked and January's going to be a busy ol' month
The rumours of Nvidia's refresh of its RTX 40-series of GPUs have been steadily building for months and although the final specifications have yet to be set in stone, the dates when you can buy them all have been leaked. The RTX 4070 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4080 Super will reportedly be announced 8 January 2024 and will reach retailers' shelves by 17, 24, and 31 January respectively. Oh, and the wholly unnecessary RTX 3050 6GB will be available in February, too.
News of the announcement dates was reported by Videocardz, though they all fall in line with general expectations given the date of its CES Special Address. Nvidia has typically released refreshed versions of its base models around a year or so after the initial introduction, so we're right on track for the same to happen with the RTX 40-series.
Only three of them are getting an updated version so far, namely the RTX 4070, 4070 Ti, and 4080.
All three will be announced at the same time and almost certainly during the CES 2024 event. However, unboxing videos and final reviews will be rolled out over a period of nine to 23 days, with the RTX 4070 Super being the first on show.
The current rumours point to this being very similar to the RTX 4070 Ti, with around 7% fewer shaders. If everything else is the same but at a much lower price than the Ti's $799, this could be the one to get.
Next up will be the clunkily-named RTX 4070 Ti Super, with reviews and retailer availability coming the second-to-last week in January. This refresh is purported to use a cut-down version of the AD103 GPU powering the RTX 4080, putting its performance squarely in between the 4070 Ti and 4080's. No idea about the price, of course, but hopefully it's as close to $799 as possible.
The last RTX 40 refresh to appear will be the 4080 Super and you'll be able to read all about it (and purchase one if you like the look of it) at the end of January. As far as I can tell, this will just use a full AD103 chip and unless there's a serious boost in the clocks, the performance difference between the RTX 4080 and the 4080 Super won't be very big at all.
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.
Perhaps Nvidia wasn't planning on that and instead just looking to reset the price position of its second most powerful GPU.
Now, before you all scuttle off to await the reviews, Videocardz also confirmed more details on the expected RTX 3050 6GB. The original RTX 3050 was no gaming powerhouse and this one looks like it'll be shedding some shaders, clock speed, and 2GB of VRAM. Even if the claimed $179 MSRP is real, it's really not worth buying, even if it doesn't require an external power cable.
When you can get 8GB Radeon RX 6600 cards for just $10 more, I can't see any reason to give Nvidia's rehashed RTX 3050 a single glance. But a $599 RTX 4070 Super? Now that would certainly be worth hunting down.