Following much furore over the launch of the new 12GB RTX 4080 GPU, Nvidia says that it's now unlaunching it. It'll be back, but with a new name.

Nvidia first announced its RTX 4080 graphics cards last month. There were two, with one shipping with 12GB of RAM and the other with 16GB. The two cards were priced at $899 and $1199 respectively, but the RAM wasn't the only difference between them. And that's where the problems lie.

Despite both cards carrying the 4080 branding, the 12GB version is very much inferior. It packs 7,680 CUDA cores, 639 Tensor-TFLOPs, 92 RT-TFLOPs, and 40 Shader-TFLOPs along with a 2.31GHz base clock that can boost up to 2.61GHz when needed. The 16GB is much more capable thanks to its 9,728 CUDA cores, 780 Tensor-TFLOPs, 113 RT-TFLOPs, and 49 Shader-TFLOPs alongside a base clock of 2.21GHz that boosts up to 2.51GHz.

The difference between the cards led some to suggest that the 12GB version shouldn't be called a 4080 at all. And now, Nvidia says that it agrees. "The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing," the company said in a blog post announcing the move. So now the 12GB version is being paused with a release coming further down the line - and with a new name. The 16GB version of the card will continue to launch as expected on 16 November, 2022.

What that 12GB card will be called is anyone's guess, nor do we know if the rebrand will also come with a change in price.