Gigabyte CEO explains Nvidia's potential GPU supply strategy amid crushing memory shortages — gross revenue per gigabyte of GDDR7 memory could decide what products thrive

Reports and rumors of how Nvidia plans to prioritize production of its RTX 50-series graphics cards in 2026 are swirling after a CES with no new consumer GPU launches, followed by reports that the company is ending the production of some RTX 50-series gaming GPUs and moving them to end-of-life status.

We've received a comment from Nvidia on the matter. We also spoke with the CEO of Gigabyte during CES, and his comments provide context about the overall situation and outlined a rather simple calculation that Nvidia could use to determine which GPUs it will prioritize.

We asked Nvidia for comment on the recent news that some models are being cancelled and received the following statement: "Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability."

While that statement suggests that it's full steam ahead for existing RTX 50-series products, there's more to the story. Tom's Hardware's Paul Alcorn was able to sit down with Gigabyte CEO Eddie Lin at CES for a wide-ranging interview that suggests Nvidia will still prioritize production of some of its GPUs over others based on a rather straightforward calculation, and that we should expect some RTX 50-series products to be in relatively short supply as the year progresses.

Lin went on to share the example of a $300 GPU (like the RTX 5060), for which "the memory contributes $35 per GB of revenue, whereas for a $400 8GB GPU, that product would contribute $50 per GB of memory. For a $500 [card] with 16GB of memory, that puts you at only $32 of revenue per GB, then the [contribution] is lower."

Additionally, Lin noted that Gigabyte continues to receive bundled memory from Nvidia with its GPUs. Rumors have swirled that Nvidia is no longer providing board makers with memory, which would portend a dire situation for smaller-scale players if they were forced to buy memory on the open market. Other vendors could be subject to different agreements and conditions with Nvidia, but we haven't received any confirmation from vendors that Nvidia is no longer bundling memory.

Using Lin's framework, we can understand what graphics cards are likely to be prioritized and deprioritized for allocation in 2026. Consider the following table:

At the lower end of the market, the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB contributes $47.38 of gross revenue per gigabyte of GDDR7 compared to the RTX 5060's $37.38, meaning that the 5060 Ti will likely be prioritized for allocation despite its wildly underwhelming initial reception.

The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is the most threatened card of the bunch by this measure, since as a byproduct of its MSRP and higher VRAM capacity, it contributes just $26.81 of revenue per GB of GDDR7 on board — the lowest of any RTX 50-series card.

Moving up the stack, the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti contribute the same gross revenue per gigabyte, meaning that the cheaper-to-produce 5070 will likely be favored over its Ti sibling (which uses a bigger, more power-hungry GPU and a more complex board design)—or that both cards are likely to be deprioritized in favor of the more profitable RTX 5060 Ti 8GB.

At the highest end, the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 contribute nearly the same revenue per gig of VRAM, meaning that the RTX 5080 will likely take precedence for allocation of 2GB GDDR7 chips going forward due to its smaller GPU die (half the size of the RTX 5090's) and much less complex board design. It would also mean that the 32GB of VRAM needed to produce one large 5090 GPU would instead create two 16GB RTX 5080s, which would help with overall supply and possibly lead to more margin.

Just for fun, the RTX 5090 and RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell share the same GB202 GPU (albeit with differing SM counts), but even with 96GB of GDDR7 on board, the RTX Pro 6000 contributes a whopping 41% more revenue per GB of GDDR7 on board versus the 5090.

Of course, the RTX Pro 6000 uses 3GB GDDR7 chips in clamshell mode to achieve its memory capacity rather than the 2GB single-side parts on the RTX 5090, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

But it does make it obvious why Nvidia may have foregone launching the RTX 50-series Super refresh at CES: the margins afforded by using 3GB packages on RTX Pro products are simply much more attractive than they would have been for GeForce cards that presumably would have sold for near the same MSRPs as non-Super cards did at launch.

Going forward, we expect that the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, RTX 5070, and RTX 5080 may be the easiest cards to find on shelves, relatively speaking, while enthusiast favorites like the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and RTX 5070 Ti will be in short supply. The writing is also on the wall for the RTX 5090 — we can already see the supply situation reflected in today's empty e-tail shelves and dramatically inflated prices from third-party sellers. We'll continue to monitor this situation and update our list of the best GPUs for gaming accordingly.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.