When NVIDIA launched the GTX 1050 Ti in October 2016, Obama was still president and Samsung’s fire-sensitive Galaxy Note 7 was the biggest technological news. It now appears that this relatively old GPU is coming back due to an acute shortage of GPUs, PC World reported.
NVIDIA has confirmed that it ‘meets the demand of the market which remains extremely high’ by re-releasing older GPUs, including the RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti, to its board partners. NVIDIA pointed out that none of the products were technically at the end of its life, ‘so it seems like it’s a wrong terminology to use here’, he said. This may be the case, but of course the GTX 1050 Ti is almost outdated compared to modern GPUs.
Engadget
Still, the GTX 1050 Ti offers buyers a cheap option for non-demanding games. NVIDIA can also sell it without using the GDDR6 memory, as the GPU uses older GDDR5 chips. Since the card will not work for certain types of cryptocurrency mining, the release of new shares may also keep prices for gamers lower.
The GTX 1050 Ti was launched at only $ 139, but is currently selling much higher, with prices ranging from $ 190 to $ 800. Meanwhile, the RTX 2060 was launched in early 2019 for $ 350 on the market, but is on NewEgg can be found from $ 800 to $ 1,644, which is not exactly an affordable price point for most players.
New NVIDIA 3000 series GPUs are almost impossible to find, simply because NVIDIA (and rival AMD) can not get enough GPUs to keep up with the demand. NVIDIA and AMD are both using TSMC to make their chips, and the company is currently unable to make up enough to keep up – although it is only spending $ 28 billion this year to change it. Meanwhile, President Biden has promised to address the issue with executive orders, but it will likely take years before anything changes.