We realize that we have been talking for weeks – if not months – about the hypothetical launch of the next generation of graphics cards from NVIDIAthe RTX 50 series “Blackwell“, but that’s not surprising with everything that’s been happening in the PC graphics card ecosystem lately. Regardless, the latest information suggests a greater risk than possible. RTX 50 launch in January 2025, that is, they would be announced precisely at CES in Las Vegas.
We’ve heard a lot of rumors in recent weeks and months about the launch of NVIDIA’s next generation; the first scenario was Computex 2024, held in Taipei, but it didn’t happen. Then there was talk of Gamescom, which will take place at the end of August in Cologne, Germany, but it seems that NVIDIA’s plans are leaning more towards CES 2025, which will take place in Las Vegas in January next year.
NVIDIA RTX 50 will have to wait until 2025
This information was revealed once again by the famous leaker @kopite7kimi on social media. Even though he himself leaker recently hinted that NVIDIA’s next-gen launch was expected later this year, now it has stated that we won’t see the NVIDIA RTX 50 until CES 2025, which will take place between January 7th and 10th. In fact, if true, 2024 will be the second year in a row without a new-generation graphics card launch, either from NVIDIA or AMD.
Kopite7kimi has always been a very reliable source of leaks, especially when it comes to NVIDIA. Initially, the brand is expected to launch its two high-end graphics cards – the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 – and the reasons for the delay are the subject of speculation. Many claim that the main reason is that NVIDIA is “abandoning” desktop PCs to focus on “Blackwell” graphics for AI, as TSMC’s allocation of 3nm wafers is quite limited and they prefer to focus their efforts on the most profitable market niche for them at the moment. The truth is, we think the same thing too.
There are delays across the graphics card market
Indeed, NVIDIA is not alone. Its competitors, AMD and Intel, are also experiencing some delays (but not for the same reasons, as we said, the main suspicion is that NVIDIA preferred to use its allocation of TSMC 3nm chips for graphics designed for AI, which are more cost-effective). AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics are not expected to arrive until 2025, and the same goes for the next generation of Intel graphics.
AMD is planning several major improvements to the RDNA 4 architecture, including the final inclusion of dedicated real-time ray tracing hardware, and these GPUs are also expected to use a new manufacturing node. The Intel Xe2 “Battlemage” graphics architecture is also expected to hit the market in 2025, and rumors say that in this case, they would use the 4nm manufacturing process but much more mature than the 3nm one targeted by NVIDIA and AMD.
The delay in launching the new generations of graphics cards from the three major companies indicates a significant stagnation in the gaming graphics card market, because as we said, if this were to become a reality, we would have gone two years in a row without any new generation of graphics. Of course, CES 2025 promises a lot, since it would be the scene of the launch of NVIDIA’s RTX 50, AMD’s Radeon RX RDNA 4, and Intel’s Intel Arc B Xe2. Just kidding.
