There's a lot of speculation around what NVIDIA would do with GPUs in the era of memory shortages, and according to Gigabyte's CEO, the company will prefer profitability here as well.
NVIDIA's Profit/GB Model Makes the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB the Worst One Relative to 8GB SKUs
DRAM shortages have affected several parts of the PC supply chain, and the situation in the GPU segment is becoming increasingly complex amid heavy demand for general-purpose DRAM from the datacenter buildout. There were recent rumors that NVIDIA would phase out the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB variant, but Team Green later clarified that it would not. However, in a talk with Tom's Hardware, Gigabyte's CEO, Eddie Lin, discussed how NVIDIA could adjust its supply chain strategy to maximize profits and get the most out of its 'scarce' DRAM inventory.
They cannot produce only high-end or low-end [products]... but they can, for example, they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, five segments. They focus on 1, 3, and 5, and reduce the percentage on 2 and 4, because on 2 and 4, the revenue contribution per gigabyte of memory is lower. They will calculate how much revenue [each segment] contributes per gigabyte of memory.
Lin went on to share the example of a $300 GPU (like the RTX 5060), for which "the memory contributes $35 per GB of revenue, whereas for a $400 8GB GPU, that product would contribute $50 per GB of memory. For a $500 [card] with 16GB of memory, that puts you at only $32 of revenue per GB, then the [contribution] is lower."
- Gigabyte's CEO via Tom's Hardware
Based on this model alone, we can assume that all SKUs that aren't relatively profitable for NVIDIA will be phased out, and while the company might not announce this move "publicly", retail channels will be a clear indicator. According to an analysis by Tom's Hardware, the most profitable models for Team Green right now are those with 8 GB of VRAM, such as the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060, and those with extreme-end VRAM, such as the RTX 5090 and the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell.
With this analysis in mind, prior rumors of NVIDIA restarting RTX 3060 production and increasing the MSRP of the RTX 5090 start to make a lot more sense. We already know how NVIDIA is fond of showing higher performance figures by integrating DLSS into older-gen technologies, so there is a high possibility we could see older GPU models flooding the retail market. Interestingly, NVIDIA could also resort to older GDDR modules (GDDR5), since they aren't in high demand from the AI sector, and this could be a 'placeholder' move to keep the consumer segment up and running.
It would be interesting to see what NVIDIA implements going forward, given that its consumer GPU strategy has been widely questioned since rumors surfaced that its RTX 50 SUPER lineup was delayed. It won't be wrong to say the consumer business has taken a back seat, given that the AI segment is booming right now.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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