Nvidia’s RTX 4000 series PC graphics cards are extremely expensive

Today, after months of leaks, rumors and speculation, Nvidia has finally officially unveiled its next generation of graphics cards, the RTX 4000 series. While new graphics upgrades are welcome – the RTX 3000 series has now over two years old – Nvidia’s decision to charge massive premiums for next-gen GPUs, as well as engage in arguably misleading naming practices, doesn’t sit well with many PC enthusiasts.

The new information comes from Keynote Speech by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the company’s three-day GTC 2022 event, which it bills as the “#1 AI developer conference.” Huang revealed not only the 24GB RTX 4090 (paper launch October 12 for $1599), but also a 16GB RTX 4080 ($1199) and a 12GB RTX 4080 ($899), both due in november. Additionally, the company unveiled a number of new features and technologies that the new GPUs will benefit from, including DLSS 3.0, a new performance-boosting technology called Shader Execution Reordering, and standard NVENC dual encoders supporting the AV1 video codec. new generation.

Tom’s gear has a useful summary of known specs.

Pricing aside, everything seems solid, right? Streamers and videographers demand products with robust AV1 support. DLSS 3.0 seems to make the already very compelling DLSS 2.0 technology even better for running performance-intensive games at higher resolutions and frame rates. There is now a ray-traced version of Gate. Despite the rumours, the RTX 4090 runs on less than 500 watts. And Nvidia claims, through various benchmarks, a 2x or even 4x performance improvement over last-gen cards. (Of course, take these numbers with a grain of salt until outsiders can put the RTX 4000 GPUs through their paces.) After two years of increasing performance stagnation, it’s at least nice to see a forward movement.

These prices, however. Wow, those prices.

“What the fuck? 899 for a 4080 12G, which should be a 4070? 1200 for 4080 16G, so $500 more than the last gen xx80. Those prices are insane,” lamented a Redditor.

says another, “The prices are downright insulting. They are trying to sell you a 4070 renamed to 4080 for $900 lmao.

A commentator looked back to the 2018 GeForce 10 series to find out why today’s prices were so extortionate.

And the last two people were already out of control, even at the MSRP. For years the x70 was $329, the x80 was $499, the x80 Ti was $700, and the first tier prosumer (Titan, x90, etc.) was $1,199. With Series 20, they jacked up all the prices a fucking level, and it looks like they do Again.

Indeed, in 2018, Nvidia drew criticism for pricing its new RTX 20-series cards a full “level” higher than previous 10-series cards. For example, the RTX 2070 costs almost as much as the previous top-end GTX 1080, although less of a flagship card. Today, we are seeing a similar level-skipping phenomenon take shape.

The RTX 3080 10GB Founder’s Edition MSRP—assuming you can find oneduring the the crypto mining hell of the last two years– was $699. Now, Nvidia has revealed a 16GB RTX 4080, which many watchers consider the closest thing to a true 3080 successor, for a whopping $1199, a $500 bump.

Read more: Chaotic scenes when re-provisioning Nvidia GPU

But what about the $899 12GB RTX 4080? The catch, unfortunately, is that it appears to be a significantly underperforming part, essentially a completely different card. If you refer to the Tom’s gear specs, the lower-end RTX 4080 uses a different, lower die (“AD104”, with only 7,680 shader cores) than the 16GB RTX 4080 (“AD103”, with 9,728 cores).

And it’s the same story for all specs: it’s easy to argue that the 12GB RTX 4080 appears to be a “4080” in name only, hence various viewers suggesting that “RTX 4070” would be a more “honest” designation. Of course, even then, its MSRP is $899, which is $400 more than the RTX 3070’s original $499 MSRP. Of course, two years is a long time, and we’re in the middle of a record inflation. But even taking that into account, it really does feel like Nvidia is continuing to starve what, just five years ago, was a more buoyant GPU market that offered compelling offerings across a price range.

Additionally, pricing for the RTX 4000 series will likely be even more severe outside of the US. For example, the Nvidia Italy product pages list the RTX 4090 at 1979€and both RTX 3080s at €1,479 and €1,109respectively.

“Excluding VAT, these prices are not affordable in Europe. Salaries here are significantly lower and with rising electricity costs, I just don’t see the 40 series selling well here,” said a Redditor. “They’ve marketed the technology to businesses on 99% of the stream, which again shows their lack of faith in the gaming market.”

“Basically all the currencies have weakened against the US dollar, most of them between 10 and 30%, so it’s going to be even more expensive. The 4090 is literally $2100 retail in Japan,” said another.

These were considered scalping prices less than a year ago.

Read more: Rare Gundam Graphics Cards Wasted on Crypto Mining

It’s also worth remembering that the MSRPs announced today only cover Nvidia’s own versions of cards, such as the RTX 3000 series Founder’s Edition products. RTX 4000 series cards from AIB vendors (add-in cards ) third parties like Asus and MSI will usually cost more. Last week, noted vendor Nvidia AIB EVGA shocked viewers by announcing its decision to stop making Nvidia graphics cards.

When asked to comment, an Nvidia spokesperson said:

Pricing for the RTX 4090 starts at $1599. By comparison, the launch price of the RTX 3090 Ti, which the RTX 4090 now replaces, was $1,999.

The RTX 4080 16GB performs 3x better than the RTX 3080 Ti on next-gen content like Cyberpunk with RT Overdrive or Racer RTX mode, for the same price of $1199. And the RTX 4080 12GB at $899, performs 3x better than the RTX 3080 12GB for $100 less. RTX 3080 10GB is still incredible value and we will continue to offer it in our lineup.

It’s a way of looking at things. And as that last line implies, Nvidia’s new cards will actually be competing with its two-year-old RTX 3000 series products, which the company is widely rumored to have a big surplus of now that the crypto-GPU mining craze has (temporarily?) died down. It’s only recently, after two years of outrageously inflated and scarcity-induced prices, that you can easily buy RTX 3000-series cards near MSRP. With the RTX 3080s still starting at $699, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Nvidia would gladly price the new RTX 4000 series cards any closer to Earth.

Nvidia therefore has its point of view. But looking at events on the consumer side, it really does feel like the costs of PC gaming enthusiasts are ongoing.to skyrocket, and at a time when the costs of just about everything else are skyrocketing too. Hopefully there’s some kind of relief on the horizon, because as the lone Redditor said, “I love PC gaming, but I can’t afford to be a part of it anymore.”