- The Nvidia RTX 3060 and 3050 are apparently making a comeback
- A graphics card maker in Asia has planned new models as budget alternatives, and the practice could spread to other regions.
- Meanwhile, we learn that SK Hynix plans to accelerate the development of its memory chip production capacity and triple it by 2034.
The RAM crisis appears to have another side effect, namely the return of older GPUs, but there is more positive news for the future from one of the big memory chip makers.
VideoCardz has noticed the resurrection of a few Nvidia graphics cards that aren’t even from the previous generation, but the one before that: the RTX 3050 and 3060, which are 2020 GPUs that were brought back by Manli, a graphics card maker that primarily supplies to Asia.
The Manli RTX 3060 that came back from the dead is a 12GB model, while the RTX 3050 has 6GB of VRAM and a 70W power envelope, meaning it can run on the PCIe slot (without needing to be connected to the PSU).
Elsewhere, the future of RAM is looking rosier, with news from SK Hynix, one of the three major players in memory chip manufacturing, ensuring that manufacturing capacity will increase significantly over the next decade.
Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, said in an interview with Nikkei Asia (via ComputerBase, spotted by TweakTown): “Since we are continuing our expansion plan as much as possible, our calculations show that our wafer capacity will double within five years. But honestly, once all these facilities are built, it won’t just double, it will triple by 2034 or so. »
So this means that by 2031, SK Hynix will have doubled its manufacturing capacity, and it will only be a few years before it triples, allowing us to move forward much faster. That said, this is a best-case scenario, we’re told, and those expectations could always come crashing down.
Analysis: a notable acceleration
This represents SK Hynix putting its foot on the RAM production pedal in a big way. We are now looking at eight years to triple the manufacturing capacity of DRAM and NAND flash memory chips, whereas previously the time frame was 20 years. Yes – two whole decades.
This is a measure of the demand for RAM that SK Hynix expects in the future – and that today’s memory-intensive environment is not going away. As we’ve heard recently, the AI boom is expected to continue and gobble up even more RAM for the foreseeable future.
As for Nvidia GPUs coming back to life, that may only be happening in Asia for now, but it indicates it could happen elsewhere as well. There have been previous rumors about the RTX 3060 12GB returning, so here we see concrete evidence that it’s actually happening.
Are you wondering why this is happening? Well, these two GPUs are back to serve as budget options in a time where the availability of current generation GPUs is becoming more problematic and prices are increasing. (Indeed, at the high end of Nvidia GPUs, price inflation has gotten pretty nasty this year, and the fear is that it will only get worse).
The RTX 3060 has long been a popular offering, and the 12GB variant proved tempting for gamers who didn’t want to be shortchanged by Nvidia’s new budget graphics cards that only served 8GB of VRAM. While you may question the wisdom of an affordable GPU that packs video RAM in this memory-starved climate, remember that this Nvidia card uses GDDR6 VRAM, not GDDR7 as seen in current-generation Blackwell GPUs, so it’s a different kettle of fish in that regard. This theoretically leaves additional room to produce more wallet-friendly graphics cards without tapping into precious GDDR7 resources.
Of course, we don’t know how far-reaching this apparent revitalization of older Ampere GPUs might be, and it might be a fairly limited affair. Time will tell.
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