- Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti has been “essentially killed” according to a YouTube channel
- So is the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, based on word of mouth from Asus and Australian retailers
- The price of these GPUs has already increased modestly and we can expect bigger increases if this rumor is true
Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti graphics card, as well as the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB, are apparently on borrowed time according to a new rumor.
The YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed tells us that Nvidia has “essentially killed the RTX 5070 Ti” – although this is not officially the case, as we have heard nothing from Team Green to that effect – because there is a widespread shortage of this GPU.
In fact, the supply of the RTX 5070 Ti is now so thin that we are told that Asus has placed the model in ‘end of life’ status, which means that this major graphics card manufacturer is officially done with the Nvidia GPU (add your own spices, as always with all this).
To emphasize what this means, in theory Asus will not be producing any more of its various RTX 5070 Ti models. Whatever Asus RTX 5070 Ti graphics card is left on shelves now (and in warehouses) represents remaining stock from the company, and once it’s gone, there’s no more.
Also, this is consistent with what Australian retailers are saying about the RTX 5070 Ti, namely that they cannot purchase this graphics card from their distribution partners. Hardware Unboxed claims that these retailers expect this to remain the case throughout the first quarter of 2026, so until at least April.
As noted at the outset, the same is broadly true for the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB of VRAM, the supply of which has been “significantly reduced to the point of actually being discontinued”. The YouTube channel informs us that Asus said this model is also at ‘end of life’ and will not be rolling off production lines going forward.
Retailers are again saying similar things about trying to get the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB, and that it won’t be possible to buy supplies of this particular GPU during this quarter – and that it might be even more unlikely to come back in stock than the RTX 5070 Ti.
Asus says it will focus on making other Blackwell GPU models, and it will likely be the RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB and the RTX 5060 (which also runs with 8GB).
We are told that the graphics card between all these mentioned models – the RTX 5070 vanilla version – is still being made, but with a lower number of nodes than it was revealed before.
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Analysis: a Blackwell hole in the mid-range – and a potential opportunity for AMD
This echoes what we already heard from sources in China earlier this week, and reinforces that rumor – with direct comments from Asus and various retailers lending even more weight. Naturally, when multiple sources start saying the same thing, we have to sit up and take more notice.
We’d be foolish to take it all at face value, but we’d be equally foolish to ignore it—and the fact that it’s all very believable. After all, in a climate where memory has become seriously problematic in terms of supply and price, and that includes video RAM, it’s obvious that there will be consequences (ahem) for GPUs. And cheaper graphics cards that stack VRAM – especially the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB – make less and less sense given such prevailing conditions, where AI demands push consumer GPUs to the sidelines.
For the affected GPUs, the RTX 5070 Ti (with 16GB) and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB are still in stock – well in the US, anyway, although Hardware Unboxed observes that the latter board is about to sell out in Australia.
These GPUs are now hit with price increases, albeit in the US and Australia of between 10% and 15% or so. This is a situation that could worsen soon if stocks get leaner and leaner. 20% price increases may not be out of the question anytime soon, and Australian retailers are actually predicting that this is what will also happen with the vanilla RTX 5070 (which is still being produced, as mentioned, but in smaller numbers according to the YouTube channel). As you’ve probably already seen, the prices of the RTX 5080 and 5090 have already gotten ugly in 2026.
In the end, we could be left with a pair of 8GB-toting RTX 5060 models – the vanilla 5060 8GB, plus the 5060 Ti 8GB – holding down the fort at the low end, and the RTX 5080 and 5090 at the high end, with the RTX 5070 only hanging in the middle of the earth. All GPUs are likely to get more expensive, even the 8GB models – which haven’t gone up in price yet – as the RAM crisis further grips the wider industry.
This could be a big opportunity for AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs to attack in the mid-range, which will be a clear weak spot for Nvidia if all this comes to fruition, but whether it actually happens – we’ll just have to see. AMD’s Radeon graphics cards will of course face the same VRAM supply and cost pressures as Nvidia’s (or indeed Intel’s) GPUs, but the difference is that Team Red’s boards use more affordable GDDR6 memory (rather than high-end GDDR7 as used with Blackwell graphics cards). So there could be room for AMD to take a shot at winning back some GPU market share from Nvidia here.
In the meantime, if you’ve got your heart set on a 16GB Nvidia graphics card – either the RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5060 Ti – it looks like you’d better make a move now, before stock theoretically dwindles and prices potentially start to rise.
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