by It’s been a few days since NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card launched at a ridiculous price of $1199, and it looks like consumers aren’t buying it (literally). Days after its launch, the card isn’t selling well in the consumer segment, and there are many reasons for that.
“Nope” is consumer response to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card for $1199, lower stocks than 4090 and still in stock at retailers
In our own review, we found the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 to be an impressive card in terms of gen-over-gen performance and power efficiency, but the price NVIDIA is asking is just plain absurd. The 4080 launched for $1199, making it the biggest jump in price we’ve seen for an ’80s GeForce graphics card.
Just to put things in perspective. the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 was launched two years ago for $699. The GeForce RTX 3080 12GB started at US$899. Comparing this to the 4080’s US price of $1999, we see a 71.5% and 50% generation-to-gen price increase. Previously, NVIDIA ’80’ class cards were well positioned in the $550-$700 range for several years. Below is a price comparison of different GeForce GPU generations:
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Pricing
| graphic segment | 2014-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | Titan X (Maxwell) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan XP (Pascal) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan RTX (Turing) | GeForce RTX3090 | Geforce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX3090 |
GeForce RTX4090 |
| Price | $999 | $1199 | $1199 | $2999 US | $2499 US | $1499 | $1999 $1499 |
$1599 |
| 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 | $999 | $999 | $1199 | $1199 | 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 | $549 | $549 | $699 | $699 | $699 | $999 | $1199 |
| high-end stage | 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 | $379 | $379 | $499 | $499 | $599 $499 |
TBA | open |
| mainstream 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 | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $399 $349 $279 US $229 US $219 US |
$399 $329 |
$399 $329 |
N / A |
| entry level | GTX 750Ti GTX750 |
GTX 950 | GTX 1050Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1050Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 |
GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 |
RTX3050 | N / A |
| Price | $149 $119 |
$149 | $139 $109 |
$139 $109 |
$159 $149 |
$159 $149 |
$249 US | N / A |
If we take crypto out of the equation for a second (which has helped artificially inflate the prices of cards), users who actually paid $700 or $800 for an RTX 3080 simply aren’t willing to pay more than $1,000 -Paying dollars for an 80’s class graphics card despite all the power and fancy features it has to offer. And that leads us to this day.
Shipping units NVIDIA 4080:
🟢30,000
Shipping units NVIDIA 4090:
🟢130,000
Total RTX 40 shipping units:
🟢160,000
NVIDIA’s 4090 was pretty much sold out when it launched.
Dealers still have 4080 in stock. 😶🌫️😶🌫️
– Hassan Mujtaba (@hms1193) November 19, 2022
8:30,000
9:+30% of the current broadcast— chi11eddog (@g01d3nm4ng0) November 19, 2022
Retailers in almost every region stock NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card. This isn’t a sight seen after the RTX 4090 launched, and it’s 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% down from RTX 4090 shipments, which were at 100,000 units a few weeks ago (we reported here exclusively) and are currently at nearly 130,000 units. Around 160,000 units of all RTX 40 series cards were shipped. That’s 30,000 RTX 4080 and 130,000 RTX 4090 units. So, despite a lower volume of shipments, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is still having a hard time selling and consumers are simply either waiting for a cheaper sub-$1000 solution or grabbing an RTX 4090.
Here are just a few examples of various stores in the US that are sitting with stacks 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
Below is the situation at most retailers, and while Newegg has sold out all of its cards, it looks like eBay scalpers could play a big part in creating these shortages given the site’s $1600+ card stock and even filled with maps over $2000 USA (we advise against buying any of these scalped maps):
This brings us to the third part of the story and that is the individual AIB model prices. Most NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 cards are priced par with a RTX 4090 Founders Edition or reference-priced AIB models. For example, ASUS RTX 4080 ROG STRIX and TUF Gaming are currently priced at $1500 and $1549, respectively. We also recently reported on an anime model that is priced higher than an RTX 4090. The RTX 4090 offers a 30-40% performance boost over the RTX 4080, so for that extra performance and massive VRAM pool, users might prefer 10 -15 % would pay more price instead of getting an overpriced 4080.
The last and most important thing keeping consumers from buying an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is the upcoming launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 7900-series graphics cards, which the red team has marketed squarely against the RTX 4080 and has shots at the 16 pin connectors (now confirmed as user error), its hugely oversized reference models, and betting on its brand new features. The prices are very attractive at $899 and $999, but still we would recommend our readers to wait for the final reviews. Regardless, that doesn’t change the fact that the GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card currently offers the worst value for money.
