Nvidia may already be moving on from the RTX 4090, and that’s bad news for gamers

Nvidia may have shifted some of its production away from the RTX 4090 and to its high-performance computing solution, the H100 Hopper. This could mean bad news for gamers. If Nvidia is really scaling back on the production volume of the RTX 4090, are we going to end up with another GPU shortage? According to a rumor first shared by MyDrivers, Nvidia may indeed have changed some of its orders made to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Nvidia turns to TSMC for the production of many of its different chips, and depending on needs, it may shift some orders as required. This doesn’t cause an immediate change in the market, though, but it can affect it in the long term. Nvidia cooperates with TSMC both on its high-end AD102 chip, found in the RTX 4090, and on the GH100. The latter is a GPU that belongs to the Hopper lineup and serves a different role as a high-performance computing (HPC) chip. While the AD102 is found in consumer-level GPUs, the GH100 is definitely not; Nvidia advertises it as a solution for data centers that’s capable of handling the most demanding workloads. Despite these differences, both the chips are made on the same fabs, which means that TSMC should be able to switch lanes from the AD102 to the H100. Why would Nvidia choose to dial back the production of the RTX 4090, which is easily the best graphics card available right now? The answer might be as simple as wanting to make a greater profit. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 launched with a list price of $1,599, but the Nvidia H100 GPU can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, with some versions of it being sold for as high as $39,000 — although the average price will probably be closer to $10,000 to $15,000, as reported by Tom’s Hardware. Seeing as the chips are similar in terms of complexity, and the production shift can likely be done without much effort (although it’s unclear how difficult it might be for Nvidia to change its order), it makes sense as to why Nvidia would go for the chip with the higher profit margin. This does leave gamers in a precarious position, because the demand for the RTX 4090 might remain higher than the supply. It all depends on just how much Nvidia may have shifted its priorities in the GH100’s favor. There’s also the question of price. The RTX 4090 is a very expensive GPU, and Nvidia doesn’t plan to bring those prices down, so lowering the supply of that graphics card leaves room for scalpers to push the prices up even further. We’ve seen all too much of that during the GPU shortage and we’d hate to see it come back in any major way. Now, for the good news — it’s too early to start worrying. We don’t know whether Nvidia actually has reallocated some of its production orders; it could just be a rumor. Even if it has, the vast majority of consumers won’t be buying $1,600 graphics cards left and right. Unfortunately, those who aim for the top and get an RTX 4090, might one day soon see an uptick in pricing if Nvidia has indeed changed its plans. Nvidia is trying to make its GeForce RTX 5000 series seem more impressive to the media by suggesting that the latest GPUs are selling better than the previous generation. However, many pundits aren’t buying the claim. PC Mag pondered whether Nvidia has orchestrated a “paper launch” of the RTX 5000 series, suggesting that there might not be much of a product available for consumers. The majority of the people with their hands on the GPUs, especially the high-end models such as the 5090 and 5080 appear to be reviewers, influencers, and other determined enthusiasts as opposed to everyday gamers, who are still using prior generation GPUs at higher rates. Razer is kicking off the race for the fastest gaming laptops of 2025 with its new Blade 18 machine. The company says it is the most powerful Blade laptop it has ever made, and that it’s also the slimmest machine to offer Intel’s beefy HX-series processor. The laptop will be available in three graphics configurations, which include the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and the top-of-the-line RTX 5090 GPU. Storage options start at 1TB and go all the way up to 4TB, while RAM options on the table are 32GB and 64GB. When Nvidia announced the RTX 50-series, it said that the RTX 5070 would offer performance equivalent to the last-gen flagship at a fraction of the price. Since then, gamers have been looking forward to seeing how this plays out, and we just got our first hint. According to an early benchmark, the RTX 5070 may be far from dethroning the RTX 4090, which remains one of the best graphics cards. These benchmarks, first spotted by VideoCardz, popped up on Geekbench earlier today. We’ve got two tests to dig into, including Vulkan and OpenCL. I know what you’re probably thinking — these benchmarks aren’t the best way to tell whether a graphics card is a gaming beast or not, but for now, they’re all we’ve got, and they do give us a bit of a reference point for the RTX 5070.