Sweclockers, in a news report suggest that the next generation of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs have been delayed to Q4 2013. Do note that by next generation we mean the upcoming Kepler 700 series and AMD Sea Islands HD 8000 series.

According to the source, both NVIDIA and AMD decided to postpone their next generation GPUs and would not make an appearance until October 2013. This means that the GeForce GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 are here to stay for quite sometime and only after two years of their launch would their actual replacement launch. However we are quite skeptical about this report since AMD's CEO, Rory Reach said the following in a conference call with financial analysts:

“We are introducing strong new APU and graphics offerings in the first half of 2013 that will accelerate our AMD business with the ultimate goal of returning AMD to profitability and positive free cash flow in the second half of this year,” Xbitlabs

Noting the above statement and their current roadmap, AMD seems to be going the route to launch their next generation Sea Islands HD 8000 series GPUs within Q2 2013 as previously anticipated. On the other hand, NVIDIA seems to be actually shifting its launch of GeForce 700 series from Q1 to Q2 2013 but not as far as Q4 2013. A launch of the GeForce 700 series in late Q4 2013 would mean that Maxwell which now scheduled as a 2014 chip as per NVIDIA's latest roadmap would not be unveiled only until late 2014 or even possibly delayed to 2015. We just don't see that happening.

But in the case it does happen and both NVIDIA/AMD go on and delay their next generation parts than what options would be left for consumers? Sweclockers report that their are "talks" going on that AMD might finally launch their Radeon HD 7990 "New Zealand" part although a dual-chip based Radeon HD 7990 already exists manufacturered by AIB partner PowerColor. NVIDIA however has something interesting plans for the consumer market as their GK110 based GeForce Titan (Not a GeForce 700 series) GPU would launch in late February and its performance surpasses that of a GTX 690. According to additional rumors, NVIDIA can introduce further models based on the GK110 architecture during Summer and Autumn season.

It looks like that there would be no budget or entry level next generation product for consumers till Q4 2013. We got to wait and see whether Computex 2013 brings anything new to the table or not.