It’s been a few days since NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card was released at a ridiculous price of $1199 USD and it seems that consumers aren’t buying it (literally). Days after its launch, the card is not selling well in the consumer segment and there are many reasons.
‘No’ is consumer response to US$1199 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card, lower in stock than 4090 and still available at retailers
In our own reviewWe found the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 to be an impressive card in terms of generation-after-generation performance and power efficiency, however the price NVIDIA is asking is simply absurd. The 4080 launched at a price of $1199 USD, making it the biggest price hike we’ve ever seen on an ’80’ class GeForce graphics card.
Just to put things in perspective. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 launched at $699 two years ago. The 12GB GeForce RTX 3080 launched at US$899. Comparing these to the $1999 US price of the 4080, we see a 71.5% and 50% gen-over-gen price increase. Previously, NVIDIA’s ’80’ class cards have been positioned well in the $550-$700 range for several years. The following is a comparison of GeForce GPU prices across multiple generations:
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Tier/Segment Pricing
| graphics segment | 2014-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan level | Titan X (Maxwell) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan XP (Pascal) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan RTX (Turing) | GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090 |
GeForce RTX 4090 |
| price | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $2999 US | $2499 US | $1499 US | $1999 US $1499 US |
$1599 US |
| ultra enthusiast level | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | N/A |
| price | $649 US | $649 US | $699 US | $999 US | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | N/A |
| enthusiast level | GeForce GTX 980 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce RTX 2080 Super | GeForce RTX 3080 10GB | GeForce RTX 3080 12GB | GeForce RTX 4080 |
| price | $549 US | $549 US | $549 US | $699 US | $699 US | $699 US | $799 US | $1199 US |
| high end level | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 |
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16GB | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti |
| price | $329 US | $379 US | $379 US | $499 US | $499 US | $599 $499 |
to be confirmed | Determined |
| main level | GeForce GTX 960 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce RTX 2060 Super GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660 |
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12GB |
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12GB |
N/A |
| price | $199 US | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US |
$399 US $329 US |
$399 US $329 US |
N/A |
| entry level | GTX 750 Ti GTX 750 |
GTX 950 | GTX 1050Ti gtx1050 |
GTX 1050Ti gtx1050 |
GTX 1650 SUPER gtx1650 |
GTX 1650 SUPER gtx1650 |
RTX 3050 | N/A |
| price | $149 US $119 US |
$149 US | $139 US $109 US |
$139 US $109 US |
$159 US $149 US |
$159 US $149 US |
$249 US | N/A |
If we take cryptocurrency out of the equation for a second (which helped artificially inflate card prices), users who actually paid $700 or $800 for an RTX 3080 just aren’t ready to dish out more than $1K for one. ’80’ class graphics card despite all the performance and all the fancy features it has to offer. And that brings us to today.
NVIDIA 4080 Shipping Units:
🟢30,000
NVIDIA 4090 Shipping Units:
🟢130,000
Total RTX 40 Shipping Units:
🟢160,000
NVIDIA’s 4090 was virtually out of stock at launch.
Retailers still have 4080 in stock. 😶🌫️😶🌫️
—Hassan Mujtaba (@hms1193) November 19, 2022
8:30,000
9: +30% of the current shipment-chi11eddog (@g01d3nm4ng0) November 19, 2022
Retailers in almost all regions stock NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card. This is not a sight seen after the RTX 4090 was released and is definitely not due to the massive inventory NVIDIA has for the RTX 4080. In fact, based on the numbers we have, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 shipments are close to 30,000 units.
That’s 70% less than the RTX 4090 shipments that were in 100,000 units a few weeks ago (we reported here exclusively) and currently they are close to 130,000 units. So the entirety of the RTX 40 series cards have shipped around 160,000 units. That’s 30,000 RTX 4080 and 130,000 RTX 4090 units. So despite fewer shipments, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is still struggling to sell and consumers are simply waiting for a cheaper fix below the $1,000 bracket. in the US or buy an RTX 4090.
Here are just a few examples from various stores across the US with loads of RTX 4080 graphics cards that no one is interested in buying:
Another Nvidia RTX 4080 inventory stack pic.twitter.com/ITEzCkZ96o
— tae kim 🐀 (@firstadopter) November 17, 2022
The following is the situation at most retailers and while newegg has all of its cards sold out, it looks like eBay resellers may have a big hand in causing this shortage as the site is chock full of cards priced over US$1600 and even some priced over US$1600. $2000 US (we do not recommend buying any of these pop cards):
This brings us to the third part of the story and that is the price of the individual AIB model. Most NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 cards are priced about the same as an RTX 4090 Founders Edition or reference-priced AIB models. For example, the RTX 4080 ROG STRIX and the ASUS TUF Gaming are currently at $1,500 and $1,549 USD, respectively. We also recently covered an anime-themed model that is priced higher than an RTX 4090. The RTX 4090 offers a 30-40% performance boost over the RTX 4080, so users prefer to pay for that extra performance. and a massive bunch of VRAM for 10-15% more price instead of getting an overpriced 4080.
The last and foremost thing stopping consumers from buying an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is the imminent release of AMD. Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards that the red team has been marketing squarely against the RTX 4080pulling shots at the 16-pin connectors (now confirmed as user error), its enormously oversized reference models and betting on its brand new set of benefits. The prices are very attractive at US$899 and US$999, but despite that, we advise our readers to wait for the final reviews. Regardless, that doesn’t change the fact that the GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card offers the worst performance for value for money right now.
