Nvidia RTX 4090 pre-order pricing surprised us… in a good way
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Multiple Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics cards are now listed for pre-order from a major US retailer, and the good news – well, in a way – is that the boards are priced more reasonably than some people expected, and indeed a good suggested retail price in the US. the case of some third-party models.
Tom’s hardware (opens in new tab) pointed out the product listings that have risen at Best Buy for the RTX 4090, as highlighted by one of the regular Twitter leakers we hear about, @momomo_us.
Those lists include the Gigabyte RTX 4090 WindForce and MSI RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio, with both graphics cards with price tags that are the MSRP – $1,599 in the US (about £1,460, AU$2,480) – exactly the same as Nvidia’s own founders. Edition of the flagship product.
We can also see Gigabyte’s RTX 4090 Gaming OC, which runs with an overclock (that’s what the OC stands for) and costs $1,700 (about £1,550, AU$2,630).
Finally, there’s an MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X with a price tag of $1,750 (about £1,600, AU$2,700), a thinner card with a fancy cooling system that uses an external 240mm radiator to achieve dual-slot slimness ( all the above models take up three PCIe slots due to their thickness).
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These prices are in stark contrast to the launch of current-generation Ampere graphics cards, where Nvidia’s GPUs were all flagged in one way or another as a result of a seriously out of control supply-and-demand situation (and price inflation then got worse when scalpers got involved). And of course, Team Green’s flagship models are expensive enough without premiums on top.
So it’s good to see custom RTX 4090 graphics cards appearing right away at the suggested retail price, and enthusiast models – which will always cost more – without a big extra demand on top. There’s always the possibility that Best Buy’s price could be placeholders, but with launch in just under two weeks (October 12), we think it probably won’t.
Sure, we say it’s good to see this, but really, this is what we expect. You know, graphics cards priced at the recommended level, or at least some of them. With any luck, Nvidia can push a decent amount of chips for the RTX 4090 to avoid shortages, but since it’s a niche proposition – most people won’t spend that much on their entire PC, let’s face it – demand won’t be high . But if the stock is on the small side, the danger of price inflation and the like remains.
The really interesting part is the launch of the RTX 4080, coming in November, and how stock issues and prices will drop with that slightly more (relatively) affordable GPU – or at least the lower card with 12GB of VRAM. Yes, in case you missed it, there are two separate variants of the RTX 4080, the lesser spec of which was originally intended to be the RTX 4070.