Nvidia is reportedly phasing out multiple older graphics cards to vacate space for RTX 30 series offerings

Nvidia might retire a few entry-level performance-focused graphics cards from the Turing era, according to rumors spotted on the Chinese tech forum Bobantang.

The original report of the rumor in Chinese (Image via IT Home)

The post roughly translates to:

"NV has basically decided to stop production for several series in 20\16, that is, the four series of RTX 2060S\2060, GTX 1660S\1660 have completely stopped the production line, until the end of the digestion of inventory, it will fully transfer the RTX30 series GPU product sales strategy."

The information stated that the production has been stopped until the current stock is used up:

"According to information from the upstream end, the four series production lines of the NV mid-range product line RTX 2060S\RTX 2060\GTX 1660S\GTX 1660 have been stopped, so that core AIC brand manufacturers can digest the inventory."

It further continues to say:

"There is still a small amount of GPU in stock, and currently only GTX 1650\1630 is still on sale, that is, NV and AIC's future GPU sales models will be fully changed to RTX 30 series models."

Google Translate was used for this translation.

The higher-end GTX 16 series cards, which were introduced back in 2019, might no longer be found on shelves after the next couple of months. The green camp might discontinue the RTX 2060 lineup as well. It is worth noting that the 2060 and 2060 Super were being manufactured to serve the miner market and free up the RTX 3060 stock for gamers.

These offerings are the last remnants of the Turing-powered rendering machines. Once they are phased out, only Ampere and Ada Lovelace cards will be sold in the market.

---

List of all Nvidia cards that will be phased out

The EVGA Geforce RTX 2060 12 GB (Image via Newegg)

Nvidia is rumored to discontinue the GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Super cards. These GPUs were a mid-ground between 2016's Pascal GPUs and the RTX 20 series offerings. Gamers can expect slightly more performance than the GTX 1070 with these video cards.

The main reason Nvidia introduced these models was to provide gamers with a cheaper alternative to the pricey RTX 20 series offerings. The chief selling point of the RTX graphics cards back in the day was ray tracing, a tech that was not mature enough yet. Very few games supported ray tracing back then.

The cut-down versions of the RTX graphics cards sold like hotcakes. Both the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 and the 1660 Super take up the top spots on the Steam hardware survey charts even today.

However, the company might not discontinue the budget GTX 1650, the 1650 Super, and the 1630 GPUs. The GTX 1630 was just introduced a few months back as a successor to the GT 1030.

Nvidia is also considering discontinuing the RTX 2060 and the 2060 Super GPUs. These were being sold only to provide crypto miners with a viable alternative to the in-demand RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti GPUs.

A 12 GB variant of the RTX 2060 Super was introduced with the sole purpose of attracting miners.

Now that the GPU mining industry has completely evaporated, it makes sense to cut down the production of older graphics cards and allocate resources to the production of newer graphics cards.

However, readers should take the information with a grain of salt. These developments are rumors that were posted on China's Bobantang tech forums.

---

Current prices of the GTX 1660 and the RTX 2060

Currently, the GTX 1660, the GTX 1660 Super, and RTX 2060 are still available for purchase at most retail stores. However, the stock might not be replenished once the GPUs get sold out.

The GTX 1660 Super was spotted on Newegg for as low as $150, the GTX 1660 is available for $169, and the GTX 1660 Ti is currently selling for as low as $189.

The RTX 2060 is currently selling for $219.99 and the 2060 Super is available for $246. The 12 GB variant of the RTX 2060 is available for $249.

However, buying these older and slower graphics cards does not make sense. For around the same price, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 is a much more capable GPU.