Winners & losers: The absence of new GeForce RTX graphics cards at CES is an unusual break from tradition, fueling speculation that memory shortages driven by AI demand are disrupting Nvidia's usual launch cadence (well, that and an obvious shift in priorities). As the company rolls out its next architecture, a prominent leaker says consumers could be facing one of the longest generation gaps in the history of GeForce.

According to well-known tipster @kopite7kimi, Nvidia's next wave of consumer GPUs, tentatively branded RTX 60, won't arrive before the second half of 2027. If accurate, that would mark a striking delay following the debut of the RTX 50 series in early 2025, stretching a product cycle that already appears to be slowing.

Nvidia typically releases new GPU models every one to two years, but recent generations have taken longer. The RTX 20, 30, and 40 series launches were about two years apart, but the RTX 50 series broke that pattern, arriving 28 months after RTX 40. A second-half 2027 release would push the RTX 60 debut to at least 30 months, coming concerningly close to a full three years.

2027H2

– kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) January 7, 2026

Kopite also points out the obvious, that the RTX 60 series would be built on Nvidia's newly unveiled Vera Rubin architecture, revealed at CES this week. Vera Rubin server systems are scheduled to ship in mid-2026, suggesting a faster timetable on the data center side, even as consumer graphics cards lag behind. The GeForce RTX 60 lineup is expected to use GPUs labeled GR200.

The long wait could feel even more pronounced due to the apparent disappearance of the rumored RTX 50 Super refresh. Sources had suggested Nvidia planned to reveal higher-VRAM variants of the RTX 50 series at CES, but those plans were delayed or scrapped altogether amid difficulties securing enough GDDR7 memory.

GR20x is for gaming.

– kopite7kimi (@kopite7kimi) January 7, 2026

Those constraints reflect a broader industry shift. Explosive demand from AI data centers has sent DRAM and NAND prices soaring, driving up costs across nearly every device that relies on advanced memory.

Micron ceased manufacturing consumer memory for the first time in thirty years, and rumors suggest that Nvidia may respond to limited supply by reintroducing the RTX 3060, which launched in 2021.

Nvidia has yet to detail how the Rubin architecture will shape future consumer graphics cards, but CEO Jensen Huang has made one thing clear: traditional rasterization is no longer the endgame. When PC World asked whether the RTX 5090 would remain the pinnacle of rasterization rendering, Huang pointed instead to DLSS and neural rendering technologies, arguing they represent the future of gaming and the path to truly photorealistic worlds.