Nvidia reportedly aims to retire GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 GPUs to make space for newer and faster replacements. If, for some reason, you want one instead of an RTX 50 Series model, you should act quickly before stocks dry up.
According to the latest rumours, Nvidia will discontinue multiple RTX 40 Series GPUs. Team Green plans to send its last RTX 4070 shipments later this month in January, with AIB partners shadowing shortly after with their final batches. Retail stocks will then start their inevitable decline to make way for the announced RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti, which launch cheaper than their predecessors.
Likewise, RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti will parrot this move in March, though the Ti variant may disappear from store shelves earlier due to its ongoing scarcity. Both models are expected to get a final restock in February, before shutting down production. You should still be able to find less popular models after March, but they may not offer a great deal against new RTX 50 cards.
Considering Nvidia abides by the old adage of ‘out with the old and in with the new’, it’s possible that RTX 4060’s departure signifies the expansion of what’s a relatively slim Blackwell line-up thus far. The brand has historically staggered the release of its graphics cards, with 60-class GPUs arriving months after the rest of the stack.
For context, there were four months between RTX 3070 and RTX 3060, while Ada Lovelace shrank the wait time to just two months between RTX 4070 and 4060. The arrival of RTX 5070 in February just a month after its predecessor bites the dust, and RTX 4060 going the way of the dodo in March could mean we’ll see RTX 5060 materialise in April.
Of course, this is all speculation for the time being, but it does spell trouble for Intel and AMD, particularly if the latter doesn’t get its Radeon RX 9070 XT out the door soon. DLSS 4 multi frame generation could sway many potential buyers, especially on these mid-tier products that can benefit from the smoothness boost, but it’s Nvidia’s rasterised performance figures that should have rivals quaking a bit.
So far, Nvidia’s internal numbers place RTX 50 Series anywhere between 16% and 32% above their predecessors. If these claims hold true and both Intel Arc B580 and Radeon RX 9070 XT target RTX 40 Series in their sights, it leaves the door wide open for a potential RTX 5060 to waltz in – provided the price is right.
The lofty costs of RTX 5090 might cast doubt, but the rest of the range has actually undercut their forerunners. Should an RTX 5060 follow suit, it’d need to beat RTX 4060’s $299 MSRP, putting it right on the battlefield next to Teams Red and Blue. I, for one, am excited to see how it all turns out.
