Still can’t find an RTX 3000 graphics card? Well, they may be around for a while, even after Nvidia launches the company’s next-generation products.
The company is mulling keeping the RTX 3000 series in production for longer than originally intended to help address the ongoing demand for PC graphics cards, according to Nvidia CFO Colette Kress.
At a Morgan Stanley investors event on Monday, Kress was asked about how Nvidia was approaching its next-generation products, which will probably launch this fall. Kress didn’t say much about the upcoming GPUs, but she did note that Nvidia may sell the next-gen GPUs alongside the current RTX 3000 series.
It’s something the company dabbled in late last year when it revived the older RTX 2060 card with 12GB of video memory in an effort to shore up GPU supplies.
“Even during this period of COVID and supply constraints, it’s been interesting because it’s given us the opportunity for gaming to continue to sell both the current generation (RTX 3000) as well as the Turing generation (the RTX 2000 series),” she said. “So we’ve been doing that to provide more and more supply to our gamers in that. And we may see something like that continue in the future.”
That said, when Nvidia revived the RTX 2060 card, supplies were initially quite scarce. Now you can find it available on Newegg, but for around $500 to $600—significantly more than the original RTX 2060 product, which started at $349 when it first debuted in 2019.
The high cost speaks to another problem facing the GPU market: Too many products are being sold at ridiculously inflated prices. However, Kress has previously said Nvidia hopes to bring down pricing by circulating more GPUs into the market. So keeping the RTX 3000 series in production could help with that goal.
During Monday’s investors event, Kress reiterated that Nvidia expects GPU supplies to improve significantly starting in Q3. “We will continue to work on supply. I think we’ll be in a good supply situation in the second half,” she said.
Kress also teased that Nvidia may talk more about “some items” related to the next-generation GPUs at the company’s GTC event later this month.