There are reports of low stock levels of all of the graphics cards based on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB in China. According to MyDrivers, various manufacturers have low numbers of these GPUs for sale, and the scarcity is apparently intentional, having been reduced by Nvidia to avoid competition for sales and price cuts.
At the moment it seems that this shortage is only affecting China, with stock levels in the US seeming fine. Numerous Chinese stores are listing these particular cards as out of stock, leading us to believe that the issue is confined only to China, for some reason.
It seems counter-intuitive for it to be good business to reduce the amount of sales you’re trying to make, but in certain circumstances it can make sense. For instance, in this particular instance, Nvidia is looking to make sure each manufacturer doesn’t end up with large amounts of stock that they have to discount in order to sell. As a reminder, Nvidia doesn’t directly sell its own products, and instead passes the tech off to a number of different manufacturers, who create their own versions of the card with their own cooling tech and body designs. The internal processors and hardware are all based off the same Nvidia formula, but each will have its own slightly different twist on the basic premise.
But while balancing the forces of supply and demand is one particular reason why Nvidia may have restricted the flow of RTX 4060 Ti 8GB cards into China, there are other reasons, and it comes down to how good that particular card seems to be. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB offers good performance for a low price, and its found itself on a number of best of lists for that very reason, and Nvidia may be worried the cheaper card could overshadow the more expensive GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB variant. By restricting the number of 8GB models up for sale, Nvidia may be hoping that partners offer more of the 16GB variant as a potential alternative, upselling the customer and making Nvidia more money.
However, these are just theories, and it’s entirely possible Nvidia simply has some supply issues only within the Chinese market.