Nvidia could delay the RTX 5000 Super series indefinitely as AMD offers no 2026 competition

The ongoing memory crisis is a major factor in the delay, too

by · TechSpot

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Rumor mill: The absence of any RTX 5000 Super series announcements at CES came as no surprise. According to a new claim, the cards have now been delayed indefinitely. The industry memory crisis is the biggest factor, of course, but AMD's lack of new rival graphics cards in 2026 has apparently played a major part in the decision.

It had been expected that Nvidia would replicate what it did with the RTX 4000 series and release an RTX 5000 Super line within a year of the vanilla version's launch.

There were reports that the RTX 5000 Super cards could see a 50% increase in VRAM compared to the standard equivalent models and would be unveiled at CES, as was the case with the RTX 4000 Super cards.

But then the AI-driven memory crisis hit the industry, resulting in shortages and pushing up prices. There were rumors in November that the cards had been canceled as a result of the situation.

Now, a post on Board Channels citing industry sources claims to reveal more details behind Nvidia's decision to delay the Super series indefinitely.

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AI's role in all this is reiterated. With demand for AI GPUs rising all the time, production line capacity is being reserved for the chips, which offer much higher profit margins.

One of Nvidia's many announcements during CES was its Vera Rubin server systems. The Rubin launch is now slated for mid-2026. That's months ahead of schedule and illustrates the priority Nvidia is giving to its AI segment.

The other issue is the price and diminishing availability of VRAM, especially GDDR7.

During a Q&A session at CES, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked if restarting production on older GPUs on legacy processor nodes might help ease the current memory supply and production issues. The CEO said it was a possibility, suggesting that the cards could be revamped with the latest AI tech to improve performance.

It had already been rumored that Nvidia could restart production of the RTX 3060. The most popular card on the Steam survey uses GDDR6 memory.

The final reason, which the Board Channels post claims is the most important, is that AMD has no consumer GPU products launching in 2026. That lack of competition means the RTX 5000 series can remain competitive – RDNA 5 cards aren't expected until the second half of 2027.

Another factor might be the RTX 6000 series. Reliable tipster @kopite7kimi believes it will land in the second half of next year, so Nvidia might worry that people would hold off buying a Super card in favor of a next-gen