NVIDIA’s RTX 4080 Faces a Slow Launch Following Decline in Consumer’s Interest

Since the GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card from NVIDIA went on sale a few days ago at the absurd price of $1199 US, it seems that customers aren’t purchasing it. The card isn’t doing well in the consumer market days after its debut, and there are several reasons for this.

https://twitter.com/firstadopter/status/1593298575278178304

In terms of speed and power efficiency, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a remarkable card. However, the price that NVIDIA is asking for is outrageous. The 4080 had the single biggest price increase for a ‘80‘ class GeForce graphics card when it arrived at $1199 US. Two years ago, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 debuted for $699 US. GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB was priced at $899 US at launch. In terms of generational price increases, they are up 71.5% and 50% from the $1999 US pricing of the 4080. The NVIDIA ’80’ class cards had previously been priced well between $550 and $700 US for several years. 

Even with all the speed and fancy features that an ’80’ class graphics card has to offer, people who spent $700 or $800 US for an RTX 3080 are just unwilling to shell out more than $1000 US for it.  Nearly all retail outlets have NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card in stock. This is not a sight that emerged upon the release of the RTX 4090, and it is surely not attributable to the vast supply of RTX 4080 GPUs that NVIDIA has on hand. In reality, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 deliveries are close to 30,000 units based on the data available.

8:30,000
9:+30% of current shipment

— chi11eddog (@g01d3nm4ng0) November 19, 2022

.Around 160,000 RTX 40 series cards have been shipped overall. 130,000 RTX 4090 units and 30,000 RTX 4080 units total. So even though fewer units have been shipped, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is still having trouble finding buyers, and they are either waiting for a less expensive option under the $1000 US price range or purchasing an RTX 4090. 

This brings us to the third and final section of the narrative, which is the pricing of the individual AIB model. The majority of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 cards have comparable prices to RTX 4090 Founders Edition or AIB variants. For instance, the current prices for ASUS’s RTX 4080 ROG STRIX and TUF Gaming are $1500 and $1549, respectively. Users will rather spend an additional 10-15% for the huge VRAM pool and 30–40% performance boost that the RTX 4090 delivers over the RTX 4080 than purchase the overpriced 4080.