NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was asked what options the GPU manufacturer might be looking at to address product availability and costs. This topic is gaining attention as the current RAM shortage is driving up costs across multiple industries, while modern fabs are operating at capacity, leading to limited production of newer process nodes. All of this has recently led to rumors that NVIDIA could resurrect its GeForce RTX 3060, based on an older custom Samsung 8nm node. Paul Acorn (Tom’s Hardware) put forth the question to the NVIDIA CEO, who was very direct about the possibility of re-spinning up old tech.
“Yeah, possibly, and we could possibly, depending on which generation, we could also bring the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs, and that will require a fair amount of engineering, but it’s also within the realm of possibility. I’ll go back and take a look at this. It’s a good idea.”
– Jensen Huang, NVIDIA Co-founder and CEO
In regard to the RTX 3060, or any GPU from the RTX 30 series, the thing to remember with this series is their older tensor core generation. The RTX 40 series saw the introduction of newer, more powerful tensor cores and DLSS 3 with MFG x3; more details on those can be found here. This could, in part, be what Jensen is referring to when he says that NVIDIA could bring its latest AI technology to older GPUs. It could be interesting to see either RTX 30 or RTX 40 series GPUs upgraded with fifth-generation tensor cores as used in the RTX 50 series. As mentioned by the NVIDIA CEO, there would be some engineering involved so that would play a factor in keeping costs low even if using older tech and VRAM, but if team green could pull it off, consumers may see good value in these resurrected products.
It should be noted that some industry insiders have already stated that NVIDIA is rumored to wind down production on certain RTX 50 series GPUs, which could also be attributed to the current RAM shortage and limited fab availability for newer process nodes. This, too, could play a factor in bringing back older products.