Nvidia expects RTX 2060 12GB stock to 'ramp end of December through January' as retailers remain barren

The Nvidia RTX 2060 12GB is quite the enigma. It's not quite the graphics card you expect it to be in terms of specifications, memory bandwidth, or capacity, and while it was officially launched yesterday with decent enough fanfare from board partners, we're yet to see one legitimately on sale.

I've searched the web for genuine retailers with available RTX 2060 12GB stock—Newegg, Best Buy, Micro Center, B&H, Scan, Overclockers, Box, Ebuyer… most major retailers in the US and UK—and not found a single listing.

That's despite most major graphics card manufacturers, including Asus, Zotac, Palit, Gigabyte, and more, all announcing new (if limited) RTX 2060 12GB cards.

If it wasn't for a single review posted yesterday, it would be as if the RTX 2060 12GB launch never happened.

It wouldn't be the first time a PC component has been launched without availability, but we'd usually see a few pre-orders fulfilled on launch day at the very least. That's not the case today, so I was beginning to wonder if the actual on-sale date differed from the announcement date.

Nvidia tells me that's not the case. The on-shelf date for the RTX 2060 12GB began December 7, 2021, meaning partners were free to distribute their cards from that time. It will be down to partners as there's no RTX 2060 12GB Founders Edition, after all. 

Though I'm also told Nvidia expects "partner card availability to ramp starting the end of December through January."

So if you're keen to get your hands on this card, you may have to wait a little longer for things to really get moving. Though until we see genuine availability, we won't have any idea on its price. Without that, we're at a loss as to whether it's worth your money over newer cards such as the GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD's Radeon RX 6600.

The release of the RTX 2060 12GB has certainly been a strange one. Though I suppose as a rerelease of an RTX 20-series card, this was to be expected. If one thing is clear, however, it's that it'll be a little while longer if the RTX 2060 12GB is to help any gamers out of a graphical pinch. And that's if cryptocurrency miners don't fancy it all for themselves.