Nvidia may keep shipping Ampere GPUs even after it launches Lovelace

Getting a decent graphics card over the past few years has been almost impossible, and those that have managed it have often paid through the nose. Given that shortage is looking like it might be set to ease it would seem like roaring into the next-gen, full steam ahead is a good move, but Nvidia is reportedly thinking of keeping some of those older cards around.

During an investors event (spotted by PC Mag) Nvidia CFO Collette Kress was asked about next generation products, specifically upcoming GPUs. Kress didn't say a lot about what we can expect on the new side, but did mention that the RTX 30-series of GPUs may stick around to be sold alongside the next generation. 

“Even during this period of COVID and supply constraints, it's been interesting because it's given us the opportunity for gaming to continue to sell both the current generation [RTX 30-series] as well as the Turing generation [RTX 20-series],” said Kress. “So we’ve been doing that to provide more and more supply to our gamers in that. And we may see something like that continue in the future.”

Last year Nvidia announced a rehash on some of its 20-series cards with upgraded RAM. It was a bit of an odd move then, but was clearly aimed at helping with the rush demand for gaming GPUs. We were hoping for some nice cheap 20-series upgrades, but instead we were greeted with options a bit more expensive than what we'd hoped.

With the hope that the next generation of graphics cards should launch without the massive shortages and high demands, there's some potential things might be different this time. The RTX 30-series GPUs might actually be offered at a reasonable price point if a much more capable flagship is out at the same time, especially if the rumoured specs do put the new Nvidia Lovelace chips so far out in front. 

Either way, at least it looks like there will actually be GPUs of some fashion available in the future, which is something to look forward to.