Nvidia is allegedly changing silicon for RTX 4070 and 4060 GPUs

But why?

We’re not really sure what’s going on with tech right now. This week has had some very strange developments in the world of GPUs, including things like AMD not being as good with their own GPUs as Sony seems to be. It’s odd, and it seems as though the strangeness is going to continue until morale improves. This time around, it’s Nvidia who is doing something new, and according to one leaker, it’s that some GeForce RTX 4070 and 4060 GPUs will be using recycled or lower-binned chips.

MEGAsizeGPU states that the GeForce RTX 4070, 4060 Ti, and 4060 will all move over to different silicon, which is a fair bit larger than the current used on each model. This shouldn’t really have an impact of performance or specs as such, but it is an odd choice and will have some consumers worrying about the quality of these GPUs if they’re currently looking into them. We can’t imagine anyone wants this kind of change outside of the people in the business itself.

It’s likely this is all cost-cutting or using parts that are currently sitting around as surplus, which is good for the environment at least if that’s the case, but it’s still unusual to see. There could be basically any number of reasons for this, and we’re unlikely to hear any of the legitimate ones in the near future, so we’ll keep an eye out for official announcements as and when they come, but it has us wondering if there’s any reason beyond finance involved in this particular choice.

It’s also not like it’s inherently a bad thing, which makes it being something that’s sneaked through all the stranger. Hopefully, Nvidia puts something out soon to avoid us, or anyone else, speculating too wildly and causing a furore, but also because customers deserve to be told when a change like this happens, as even if it doesn’t reduce the power of any of the GPUs, it’s still a big change.

It’s akin to a sandwich company changing the kind of cheese they’re using. Sure, it’s still cheese, but why has the cheese changed, and why wouldn’t the company just own up to the fact that something like this has changed? These versions of the GPUs will be rolling out pretty quickly, so you can fairly safely assume that if you buy any of the trio we’ve listed from now on, they’ll likely have this new composition.

If you fancy buying a GeForce card of this ilk with today’s AD104 silicon, head right over to Amazon* and scour the deals.

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