NVIDIA May Push Back Launch Of RTX 50 Super And Next-Gen RTX 60 GPUs
We're a little over a month into 2026 and one thing is already abundantly clear—it's going to be a tough year PC gaming upgrades. Hot on the heels of a rumored delay to Intel's not-yet-announced Core G3 and G3 Extreme Panther Lake CPUs for handhelds and Valve's Steam Machine potentially getting a price adjustment before pricing is even announced, there is fresh chatter that NVIDIA is pushing back the launch of new rounds of GPUs.
One of those launches is the expected GeForce RTX 50 Super series refresh. Rumors have swirled for months that NVIDIA plans to launch three Super models, including the GeForce RTX 5080 Super, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Super, and GeForce RTX 5070 Super with bolstered specs compared to the non-Super variants. However, there's never been a consensus on exact timing.
At one point, it was rumored we could see the Super models unveiled at CES, but that obviously didn't take place. Now a month later, a report by The Information claims NVIDIA pivoted from its plans in December, "telling employees and suppliers the company was delaying Kicker, without offering a new timeline."
One of the interesting bits about the situation is the codename Kicker, which we hadn't heard before. According to the report, NVIDIA finalized the design of its GeForce RTX 50 Super series and gave it the codename Kicker, and had planned to issue the incremental update on a similar gap schedule as past refreshes.
You can probably guess why plans changed, but if not, the purported reason is the same old story—a shortage of memory chips, driven by a surge in demand from the AI industry.
"NVIDIA managers said one reason was due to the global memory shortages, which have pushed up prices, and the need to prioritize memory production for the company’s AI chip business, according to the two individuals," The Information states in a paywalled report (via Reddit).
We can also posit that NVIDIA may not feel pressured to release faster GPUs, as AMD hasn't really challenged the company's top models with its Radeon lineup. The GeForce RTX 5090 remains the fastest gaming GPU around, even more so when factoring in DLSS with Multi-Frame Generation.
Additionally, the same report claims the GeForce RTX 50 Super series delay has also prompted to NVIDIA to push back the launch of its next-generation GeForce RTX 60 series. It's said the original plan was to begin mass producing the GeForce RTX 60 series at the end of 2027. There's no mention of how far back NVIDIA is allegedly delaying the launch, but assuming the info is accurate, it would be sometime in 2028 at the earliest.
