Nvidia is preparing to re-release the GeForce RTX 2060 and 2060 Super GPUs. So says French hardware site Overclocking (via Videocardz).

This rumor is about a month ahead of the RTX 2060's successor, the RTX 3060, which will be released in late February. It is claimed that inventory of the reborn RTX 2060 and 2060 Super has already been sent to board partners and system builders.

If true, the move comes as Nvidia continues to struggle to supply new RTX 30 series boards in the face of enormous demand for more from gamers and cryptocurrency miners, as well as a supply chain in turmoil in the face of a global pandemic.

Coincidentally, looking at the data provided by Nvidia itself regarding the performance of the new RTX 3060, the re-introduction of the 2060 GPU makes a lot of sense.

In the two titles shown in the graphs, which are raster-only rather than ray-traced, the RTX 3060 is a fairly modest step ahead of the RTX 2060. In the same graph, the RTX 2060 is shown to be a much larger jump than the RTX 1060, but the graph points for the 1060 are barely visible.

In any case, Nvidia's own performance numbers suggest that the RTX 2060 will provide a fairly similar experience to the RTX 3060 in traditional raster games, and that will be even more the case with the RTX 2060 Super, which will be a much better experience than the RTX 1060 in traditional games. And of course, the majority of games are still pure raster games.

Anyway, the big question is price: the RTX 3060 is a $329 board. But how will the reborn RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 Super be positioned?" On the one hand, it is hard to imagine them being more expensive than the RTX 3060. In fact, early last year, the RTX 2060 was reduced from $349 to $299.

On the other, with supply so tight, it is not hard to imagine finding housing; the RTX 2060 Super is particularly troublesome, thanks to its 256-bit memory bus, which offers at least one obvious advantage over the RTX 3060. Performance-wise, it won't be far behind the RTX 3060 in raster games, but with the new Ampere architecture, the 3060 will have a healthy lead where ray tracing and perhaps DLSS are used.

The problem is that the RTX 2060 Super was a $399 board. Therefore, it would need a significant price drop to undercut the RTX 3060. Or, the odd situation would be that the old RTX 20 series boards would be re-released and priced higher than the RTX 30 series' near successor and on par with the RTX 3060 Ti.

And also, the GPU supply situation is pretty devastating right now: the RTX 2060 and 2060 Super are based on TSMC's old 12nm process, so maybe there are some old 12nm machines sitting around, ready to pump out old old GPUs at a discount! Maybe. Our only concern is that the chip manufacturing industry as a whole has reached its capacity limits and may even have difficulty obtaining the components needed for the RTX 2060 and 2060 Super other than the GPU. In that case, will many of these cards ever see the light of day?

Regardless, if the rumors are true, let's hope that the talk of inexpensive chips is accurate; PC gaming needs wins, and the RTX 2060 and 2060 Super are the best of the best.