Markets of every kind are being hit with a observe referred to as “shrinkflation,” the place the value of an merchandise stays the identical however you get much less product (or a lesser-quality product) for what you pay.
Shrinkflation is what involves thoughts with the information that Nvidia’s newest model of the RTX 4070 graphics card will downgrade its 12GB of reminiscence from GDDR6X to GDDR6.
Associated: Graphics playing cards are about to get dearer
That change is rather less dramatic than it would sound. Regardless of the older and slower reminiscence commonplace, the brand new RTX 4070 mannequin will solely lose about 5 p.c of its reminiscence bandwidth. That brings the reminiscence velocity down from 21Gbps to 20Gbps, based on VideoCardz.com.
And that’s simply the reminiscence. Each different part will stay the identical, together with the graphics processor and its clock velocity.
So, the ultimate results on efficiency for the brand new mannequin versus the previous one shall be negligible. GPU suppliers aren’t even updating their SKUs, although they’re marking the brand new one with a “GDDR6” label. If you happen to’re particularly trying to find GDDR6X reminiscence, as will nonetheless be used on dearer Nvidia playing cards, you is perhaps in for a little bit of a retail hunt.
The factor that basically irks me, although, is that the value for the newer, barely slower playing cards isn’t charging. Nvidia says it’s making the change “to enhance provide and availability to fulfill robust demand,” based on two paragraphs buried in a press launch about Black Delusion Wukong and Star Wars Outlaws. Nvidia appears to be streamlining its provide chain for barely higher effectivity… however that’s a profit for Nvidia and its suppliers, not for us customers.
Shrinkflation, whaddayagonnado. If it’s any comfort, graphics card costs are so malleable by the point they get to retailers that we probably wouldn’t have seen any change within the MSRP anyway.
Additional studying: The perfect graphics playing cards for each funds