For the primary time in three a long time, Nvidia is reportedly taking a 12 months off from the gaming GPU market.
According to a brand new report from The Information, Team Green has scrapped its plans for any new graphics card releases in 2026. The motive? As you may need guessed, the continuing world reminiscence scarcity, or what we at Tom’s Guide consult with as “RAMageddon,” has turn out to be so extreme that Nvidia is being compelled to decide on between avid gamers and feeding the AI beast.
Unfortunately, AI is successful. Here’s every thing you have to find out about this newest improvement within the ongoing RAM disaster saga
The finish of a 30-year custom
NVIDIA has launched not less than one new gaming GPU each single 12 months for the reason that early 90s. Even in the course of the peak of the crypto-mining craze and the pandemic provide chain collapse, the corporate managed to get one thing onto retailer cabinets.
But 2026 is completely different. RAMageddon has hit some extent the place AI knowledge facilities are merely gobbling up the uncooked supplies for reminiscence.
According to The Information’s sources, Nvidia has indefinitely delayed “Kicker”—the code title for the incremental RTX 50-series refresh, seemingly the “Super” playing cards that we anticipated to see this 12 months. Even although the designs had been reportedly completed, the corporate determined that it could not justify the reminiscence prices.
RTX 50 manufacturing slashed
It’s not simply concerning the lack of recent playing cards, both. The report additionally states that Nvidia is slashing manufacturing of its present RTX 50-series GPUs. With reminiscence provide this tight, Nvidia appears to be prioritizing its restricted inventory for AI chips.
This is clearly dangerous information for avid gamers. We’re already seeing RTX 50 prices spike at retail due to scarcity, and these production cuts mean that mid-range favorites like the RTX 5070 and 5060 Ti are going to be even harder to find at MSRP.
Don’t expect the RTX 60-series any time soon
If you were hoping to skip this generation and wait for the RTX 60 series, you’re likely going to wait longer than you expected.
The delay in the 2026 refresh has reportedly pushed mass production of the next-generation “Rubin” gaming GPUs to the end of 2027. If that’s the case, then we are looking at a nearly three-year gap between major GPU generations.
On a related note, since we’re discussing delays, Moore’s Law is Dead experiences that Nvidia’s N1X CPUs are experiencing bugs and software program points, delaying after we’ll see Arm-based Windows laptops. Apparently, neither Microsoft nor Nvidia is speeding to make sure the SoCs (System-on-Chip) are totally supported on Windows.
Outlook
This newest information, sadly, validates every thing we’ve been saying: the PC market is successfully in survival mode. When Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nvidia’s personal management are sounding the alarm on memory prices, you know things are serious.
If you’re currently building a PC, my advice remains the same: stop waiting for the next big thing and grab what you can find now. Whether that’s an existing RTX 50 card or building around a DDR4 platform to save cash, the goal for 2026 is to create a rig that works, even if it doesn’t have the latest and greatest components.
As always, we’ll monitor this situation and anything else related to the RAM crisis, so stay tuned!
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