Nvidia may be pulling the RTX 2060 out of retirement to combat PC gaming's price problem

Nvidia RTX 2060 Founders Edition graphics card on a black background — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia is rumoured to be resurrecting the GeForce RTX 2060 with 12GB of memory, in what appears could be a response to today's ongoing graphics card shortages.

According to anonymous sources speaking with Videocardz, Nvidia is planning to roll out a graphics card built around the same TU106-300 GPU found within the original RTX 2060, which was first released in January 2019.

This 'new' RTX 2060 would come with a new 'KX' suffix and be paired with 12GB of GDDR6 memory, which is double that of the 2019 model. Otherwise, the 'new' RTX 2060 is said to be a match for the older card, which almost certainly will mean it's built using TSMC's 12nm process.

The 12nm process is a few generations behind the cutting-edge nodes from TSMC or Nvidia's new manufacturing buddy, Samsung. However, it is likely higher yield, cheaper, and less in-demand than others, which would help Nvidia produce chips at a greater volume and, ideally, at a lower price.

Similarly, the TU106 GPU within the RTX 2060 wasn't the full chip. That was found in the RTX 2070, which means Nvidia needn't use perfect GPUs for the RTX 2060.

There's no word on price for the rumoured card. The RTX 2060 launched at $349, although was later dropped to $299, and you'd expect a stay from that sort of pricing for a card that's a bit long in the tooth nowadays. Similarly, with the RTX 3060 12GB starting at $329 (if you could find one at MSRP), an RTX 2060 would have to a much more affordable proposition to entice gamers.

And the reason for this rumoured re-release would be in response to ongoing graphics card shortages. Almost a year on from the launch of the RTX 30-series graphics cards and we're yet to see a steady supply of these cards on the shelves.

Zotac RTX 3060 12GB Twin Edge graphics card — The RTX 3060 is the cheapest desktop graphics card in Nvidia's Ampere generation, starting at $329. (Image credit: Future)

The Ampere generation has been selling extremely well, Nvidia has confirmed, but demand is outstripping supply.

To resurrect the RTX 2060 would be very telling for how Nvidia sees the coming year in terms of GPU availability. And it's not good news. Kicking the RTX 2060 out of retirement would suggest the green team is not expecting a drop in demand anytime soon, nor a sudden influx of supply.

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The Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD RX 6700 XT side by side on a colourful background — (Image credit: Future)

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That's in line with most in-the-know CEOs, including Intel's Pat Gelsinger, who have repeatedly stated that supply will not return to normality until 2022/23, if not later. Nvidia's own forecast for supply has also become increasingly worrying as the year progresses.

Nvidia will be cautious to lean in to high demand, though. It was bitten in 2018 by catering to a sudden influx of crypto-mining demand that dissipated almost overnight, leaving the company's share value to crumble.

Still, I find myself cautiously optimistic about the prospect of a graphics card to address the entry-level market. I'd really much rather a cheap and cheerful RTX 3050 Ti or RX 6000-series GPU to arrive on desktop—but with the right price, enough volume to make the MSRP stick, and liberal use of upscaling technologies and cryptocurrency mining limiters, perhaps a rerun of the RTX 2060 could keep the wolves from the door a little while longer.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.