NVIDIA has taken the RTX 4080 12GB off the market at short notice.
However, "taken off the market" is not the right term, because the card was only "unlaunched". In fact, the release was planned for November 2022, but is now completely cancelled.
According to NVIDIA, the reason for this is relatively simple. Two graphics cards with the designation 4080 are simply confusing. Instead, only the RTX 4080 16GB will be released on November 16, 2022.
The performance of the 4080
The reason is probably due to the fact that the RTX 4080 12GB and the RTX 4080 16GB have a large performance difference. The RTX 4080 16GB is basically a 4090 with disabled CUDA cores and reduced clock rate. The RTX 4080 12GB, on the other hand, had fewer CUDA cores, a smaller 192-bit memory bus, and allegedly even a completely different GPU. Even NVIDIA's benchmarks show the different performance levels of the two cards. The 12GB was up to 30% slower than the 16GB variant of the 4080.
The new RTX 4070
We currently assume that the "old" RTX 4080 12GB will be the "new" RTX 4070. This would mean that NVIDIA would go the same way as with the previous generations of graphics cards.
