Nvidia's roll-out of its 30 Series graphics cards has not gone smoothly. Despite that, Nvidia's continued trudging on, following up the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 card's launch with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090's release on September 24. While neither card has remained in stock across retailers, everything looked on-schedule to launch the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 mid-October as planned. But plans change, as Nvidia's now confirmed that it will be delaying the release of 3070 cards.
According to Nvidia, the 3070 will no longer launch mid-October and will instead be released two weeks later on Thursday, October 29. Pricing remains the same, with Nvidia's 3070 Founder's Edition retailing for $499 and AIB cards from other manufacturers likely to be parallel or higher. The performance will also deliver as promised, with the 3070 offering an experience parallel with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which cost over twice as much.
Nvidia did offer a straightforward reason for the day. Simply put, Nvidia wants to ensure that more 3070 cards are available to purchase both from Nvidia directly and from third-party partners. Nvidia says that production of GeForce RTX 3070 cards is currently "ramping quickly." In addition, Nvidia says that it made this decision in direct response to customer feedback, as they were saying they wanted more cards available on launch day.
Obviously, there's clear truth in what Nvidia is saying. PC enthusiasts have been incredibly unhappy with the supply of graphics cards available for the launches of both the 3080 and 3090. The fact that both cards remain completely unavailable online outside of scalped cards on eBay being sold at massively increased prices. Any supply of 3070s that last for more than seconds, let alone minutes, before selling out will probably be considered a success by PC enthusiasts.
One lingering question, however, is whether the recent controversy regarding 30 Series cards causing crashes might be related to the delay. Widespread reports of a power issue in the 3080 causing games to crash or freeze were prominent following the card's launch. Since then, Nvidia's issued a driver update that corrected the issue, but limited the 3080's peak boost clock in the process. Some question whether drivers are just a bandaid for hardware changes behind the scenes. It's possible that 3070s are being changed, as well.
While the 3070s are being delayed to produce more cards, according to Nvidia, it should be made clear that few expect supply to meet demand. Given the launches of both the 3080 and 3090, potential buyers will be lucky if they even see the cards go live before they're sold out. The delay may give some buyers new hope, but few would be surprised if the 3070's launch on October 27 isn't the same as what's come before.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 releases October 27.