Has the Nvidia RTX 4090 Ti been discontinued before it was even announced?

Rumor mill: The long-running rumors that Nvidia plans to release a massive RTX 4090 Ti graphics card could stop after a leaker claimed it has been canceled. Assuming Nvidia really did intend to release a Lovelace product above the RTX 4090, killing it off at a time when even the "mid-range" cards cost a fortune was probably a sensible move.

Rumors of a monstrous, quad-slot RTX 4090 Ti arrived in January. The card was alleged to pack 24GB of 24Gbps memory and a slightly cut-down version of the AD102 with 18,176 Cuda cores, 192 ROPs, 568 TMUs, a 96MB L2 cache, and a 384-bit memory bus. It was also said to have a TGP of 600W.

The AD102 configuration is similar to the one used in the RTX 6000 Ada Generation card aimed at the professional and enterprise market, though that $7,000+ product packs 48GB of GDDR6.

But the same prolific leaker who revealed those specs, kopite7kimi, now says that Nvidia has decided to cancel the card. Given that the RTX 4090 carries a $1,600 price tag, it's unlikely that many people would have been lining up to purchase something even more expensive in these economically uncertain times.

While Nvidia is apparently canceling a potential flagship card, kopite7kimi also states that it is preparing some new variants further down the product stack. The leaker says new versions of the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 are being released with some higher-end GPUs: a cut-down AD103 and an AD106.

The AD103, currently used in the desktop RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 mobile, could give a spec boost to the RTX 4070, which uses the AD104 GPU. We could see an upgrade from a 192-bit bus to 256-bit, and maybe a version with 16GB of VRAM.

As for the RTX 4060, which uses the AD107 GPU, the new variant could also offer a higher configuration using the AD106, found in both the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and 16GB.

There are a lot of unknowns here, and even if Nvidia does use cut-down versions of more powerful GPUs in new card variants, it's something the company has done before without noticeably improving their performance.

Going back to the RTX 4090 Ti, it does look as if Nvidia is going to keep the RTX 4090 at the top of the consumer product line – we also heard of a 900W Lovelace Titan being canceled last year as it was melting PSUs. Team Green could always release the 4090 Ti at a later date, of course, but then the RTX 5000 cards are rumored to be launching next year with massive performance increases.