- Nvidia is rumored to have cut GeForce GPU production by 15-20%
- Apparently no new Blackwell gaming GPUs will be available this year.
- This theoretically rules out an RTX 5000 Super refresh, which many expect later in 2026.
Nvidia’s supply of chips to its graphics card manufacturing partners has reportedly been significantly reduced, and there will be no new GeForce GPUs this year, we’re told.
The latest nugget of GPU woe comes from leaker MegasizeGPU, which, as Tom’s Hardware noted, posted on X to say that Nvidia GPU supply had been reduced by 15-20%.
In other words, the chip and video RAM packages that Team Green makes and sends to its third-party partners who actually build the GeForce graphics cards (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc.) have been reduced by a fifth.
This is a significant drop, although the good news highlighted by the leaker is that Nvidia is still supplying chips with the necessary VRAM. (Another rumor suggested this wouldn’t be the case, and I’ll come back to why that’s important later).
So, even if it’s a little nice to hear, the leaker ends on a bitter note: “The bad news is that there will be no new product in 2026.”
In other words, you can forget about those RTX 5000 Super refreshes that the grapevine has been slated for a late 2026 release, after being “delayed” from a planned arrival date of late 2025, as initial rumors claimed. Of course, this is all speculation, so season everything mentioned here and season it liberally.
Later in the thread on (This seems fair enough, although other discussions suggest a late 2027 launch is possible for these cards).
It’s also worth noting that in a new development on the AMD front, a Gizmodo interview from CES 2026 was released (which was only published yesterday, as reported via VideoCardz) in which a Team Red executive made some reassuring noises about Radeon GPU delivery.
The comments from AMD’s David McAfee, vice president of the Client Channel business, echo what he said in another CES interview about “very strategic partnerships” with DRAM manufacturers to ensure that “both the amount of supply we need and the economics of what we can buy from them are what we can sustain in our graphics business.”
However, McAfee added that it can’t predict the future (obviously), but that AMD has tried to work with its graphics card manufacturing partners to keep prices close to what Team Red suggests (the MSRPs listed).
Analysis: 16GB could be a tough load for this year
As for Nvidia, the good news in this set of rumors is that the company still supplies VRAM as well as graphics chips to its third-party card-making partners. If this were not the case – as another recent rumor suggested – it would have been a death blow for small manufacturers. They would have really struggled to source their own GDDR7 memory in the current RAM crisis (which is why I was never too convinced that this rumor had much of a head start anyway).
The overall picture drawn here, however, is rather disastrous. RTX 6000 GPUs aren’t even on the radar yet (although that’s not really a surprise), and RTX 5000 Super refreshes won’t arrive at all in 2026, if MegasizeGPU is right. And a production drop of up to 20% in terms of supply of Blackwell graphics cards would be disastrous: with fewer GPUs hitting shelves, prices would likely rise (especially with video memory becoming more expensive anyway, due to the mentioned RAM crisis).
All this against the backdrop of rumors that Nvidia is indeed discontinuing a few mid-range Blackwell models with 16GB of VRAM. Namely the RTX 5070 Ti and the version of the RTX 5060 Ti with 16 GB (there is another version of the latter with 8 GB) – but this is something that Nvidia has just denied. According to Team Green, it continues to ship all current GeForce GPU models and “works closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability.”
The problem is that the RAM world is clearly hurting – very badly – and AI GPUs are a priority because they make a lot of money (not just for Nvidia, and I’ll get to that). Given this, it’s pretty easy to believe that Blackwell GPU production levels could take a pretty nasty hit, so while the RTX 5070 Ti may be available and still in production, it could be very thin on the ground (and subject to out of stock and a price increase, as a result). In other words, technically Nvidia may still be offering the 16GB graphics cards mentioned, but they may be very difficult to get hold of (at near MSRP).
We’re in hypothetical territory here, of course, but a world where 8GB GPUs are the primary choice – aside from the 12GB RTX 5070 (and not counting the RTX 5080 and 5090 because they’re simply too expensive for mainstream consumers) – is a prospect that’s not a comforting thought for many PC gamers. Those who argue that 8GB just isn’t enough these days, and we’ve covered that topic a lot recently (although it’s true that DLSS and frame generation can really help, at least with some games).
As for whether AMD might be able to capitalize on the wobbly supply levels Nvidia is suffering from, Team Red is, of course, also facing the same VRAM issues. It will surely feel the pressure with its own 16GB gaming GPUs and the lure of creating AI accelerators that use a lot of VRAM and are much more cost-effective products.
AMD may be making all the right noises to keep prices close to MSRPs, but RDNA 4 GPUs have exceeded suggested prices well in the past, and that’s without all the complications of the RAM crisis.
All of this is to say that if you’re considering a GPU upgrade in 2026 and you can find the graphics card you’re thinking about at a price that seems decent, I’d probably buy now rather than wait. And if your decision is based on waiting for RTX Super refreshes for Blackwell, it seems more likely that these GPUs could be far away – or even arrive.
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