Nvidia’s Refreshed RTX 2060 12GB Already Impossible to Find

You won’t believe what happened next.

The card silently launched on Tuesday, apparently, but judging by online reports it’s already out of stock everywhere, outrageously priced, or just doesn’t seem to exist, just like every other GPU. Yep, we can hardly believe it too.

As it turns out, instead of being a remedy for the GPU supply crisis, it appears to be part of the problem instead. As spotted by Videocardz, a reviewer in Hong Kong got a sample board and surprise, surprise: It’s actually better at mining than the more-expensive RTX 3060. In a benchmark chart simply labeled “Mining,” the RTX 2060 12GB posted a hash rate of 31.65 MH/s, compared to the RTX 3060 LHR (Low Hash Rate)’s 21.17 MH/s mining speed.

There’s a bit of play in these numbers. It’s possible to get the RTX 3060 up to ~50 MH/s if you bypass Nvidia’s lockouts. This makes the RTX 2060 12GB somewhere between 66 percent and 150 percent as fast as the RTX 3060, depending on which metrics you compare. The review below used the default low hash rate for the RTX 3060.

Another odd turn of events is despite the card showing up in the hands of the reviewers above, it’s a rare creature everywhere else. Zotac does indeed have a listing for the new GPU on its website, but there’s no mention of it anywhere on Nvidia’s website or blog, despite the fact that its latest GeForce drivers specifically mentioned the card as being compatible with the driver.

Oddly, no US press received a review sample of the card, as there have been no reviews posted, but today (December 8th) several manufacturers posted press releases announcing the card, albeit without any information on pricing or availability. Newegg and Amazon only show listings for the previous model, which are selling for around $700 on average. And to think, this new GPU, with double the memory of the previous card, was supposed to have an MSRP of $300.

Suffice to say, there is no hope left. All we can do is wait, and assume it won’t be this way forever. We can hope and pray that sometime next year things start to return to normal. After all, Nvidia’s CFO herself said recently she thinks the situation might stabilize in the second half of 2022. Until then, we just have to be happy with the GPUs we have, or suck it up and buy a pre-built gaming PC. We wish there was another way, but this is our current reality.

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