Nobody Wants NVIDIA’s $1199 US GeForce RTX 4080: Despite Lower Shipments, Retailers & Stores Are Stocked With Cards

Hassan Mujtaba
Nobody Wants NVIDIA's $1199 US GeForce RTX 4080: Despite Lower Shipments, Retailers & Stores Are Stocked With Cards 1

It's been a few days since NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card launched at a ridiculous price point of $1199 US and it looks like consumers ain't buying it (literally). Days after its launch, the card isn't selling well in the consumer segment and there are plenty of reasons.

'Nope' Is Consumers Reply To The $1199 US NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Graphics Card, Lower Stock Than 4090 & Still Stocked Up 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, however, the price that NVIDIA is asking for is simply absurd. The 4080 launched at $1199 US, making it the single largest price bump we have ever seen on an '80' class GeForce graphics card.

Related Story NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Crashes During Million Dollar CS2 Tournament Despite Being Selected As The GPU Of Choice

Just to put things into perspective. the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 launched at $699 US two years ago. The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB launched at 899 US. Comparing these to the 4080's $1999 US price, we see a 71.5% and a 50% price bump gen-over-gen. Previously, the NVIDIA '80' class cards had been positioned well in the $550-$700 US range for several years. Following is a comparison of various gen GeForce GPU's pricing:

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment2023-20242022-20232021-20222020-20212019-20202018-20192017-20182016-20172014-2016
Titan TierGeForce RTX 4090GeForce RTX 4090GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
GeForce RTX 3090
GeForce RTX 3090Titan RTX (Turing)Titan V (Volta)Titan Xp (Pascal)Titan X (Pascal)Titan X (Maxwell)
Price$1599 US$1599 US$1999 US
$1499 US
$1499 US$2499 US$2999 US$1199 US$1199 US$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast TierGeForce RTX 4080 SUPERGeForce RTX 4080GeForce RTX 3080 TiGeForce RTX 3080 TiGeForce RTX 2080 TiGeForce RTX 2080 TiGeForce GTX 1080 TiGeForce GTX 980 TiGeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price$999 US$1199 US$1199 US$1199 US$999 US$999 US$699 US$649 US$649 US
Enthusiast TierGeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPERGeForce RTX 4070 TiGeForce RTX 3080 12 GBGeForce RTX 3080 10 GBGeForce RTX 2080 SUPERGeForce RTX 2080GeForce GTX 1080GeForce GTX 1080GeForce GTX 980
Price$799 US$799 US$799 US$699 US$699 US$699 US$549 US$549 US$549 US
High-End TierGeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
GeForce RTX 4070
GeForce RTX 4070
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
GeForce RTX 3070
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
GeForce RTX 3070
GeForce RTX 2070 SUPERGeForce RTX 2070GeForce GTX 1070GeForce GTX 1070GeForce GTX 970
Price$599
$549
$599 US
$499 US
$599
$499
$599
$499
$499 US$499 US$379 US$379 US$329 US
Mainstream TierGeForce RTX 4060 Ti
GeForce RTX 4060
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti
GeForce RTX 4060
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB
GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER
GeForce RTX 2060
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
GeForce GTX 1660
GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 960
Price$449
$299
$399 US
$299 US
$399 US
$329 US
$399 US
$329 US
$399 US
$349 US
$279 US
$229 US
$219 US
$249 US$249 US$249 US$199 US
Entry TierRTX 3050 8 GB
RTX 3050 6 GB
RTX 3050RTX 3050GTX 1650 SUPER
GTX 1650
GTX 1650 SUPER
GTX 1650
GTX 1050 Ti
GTX 1050
GTX 1050 Ti
GTX 1050
GTX 950GTX 750 Ti
GTX 750
Price$229
$179
$249 US$249 US$159 US
$149 US
$159 US
$149 US
$139 US
$109 US
$139 US
$109 US
$149 US$149 US
$119 US

If we take crypto out of the equation for a second (which helped inflate prices of cards artificially), users who actually paid $700 or $800 US for an RTX 3080 are simply not ready to dish in over $1K US for an '80' class graphics card despite all the performance and all the fancy features that it has to offer. And that leads us to today.

Retailers in almost all regions are stocked with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card. This is not a sight that was seen after the RTX 4090's launch and it is definitely not due to the massive inventory that NVIDIA has for the RTX 4080. In fact, based on the numbers we have, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 shipments are close to 30,000 units.

That's 70% less than RTX 4090's shipments which were at 100,000 units a few weeks back (we reported here exclusively) and are currently close to 130,000 units. So the entirety of the RTX 40 series cards has shipped around 160,000 units. That's 30,000 RTX 4080 and 130,000 RTX 4090 units. So despite a lower quantity of shipments, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is still having a hard time selling and consumers are simply either waiting for a cheaper solution under the $1000 US bracket or getting themselves an RTX 4090.

Here are just a few examples of various stores in the US sitting with piles of RTX 4080 graphics cards that no one is interested in buying:

Following is the situation at most retailers and while Newegg has all their cards sold out, it looks like eBay scalpers may have a big hand in causing these shortages as the site is loaded with cards priced above $1600 US and even some which are priced above $2000 US (we don't recommend buying any of these scalped cards):

nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-retailers-_1
nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-retailers-_2
nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-retailers-_3

This leads us to the third part of the story and that's the individual AIB model pricing. Most NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 cards are priced neck-to-neck with an RTX 4090 Founders Edition or AIB models with reference pricing. For example, ASUS's RTX 4080 ROG STRIX and TUF Gaming are currently at $1500 & $1549 US, respectively. We also recently covered an anime-themed model which is priced higher than an RTX 4090. The RTX 4090 offers a 30-40% performance bump over the RTX 4080 so users would rather pay for that extra performance and massive VRAM pool for 10-15% more price rather than get an overly priced 4080.

The last and most crucial thing that is holding off consumers from buying an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is the imminent launch of AMD's Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards which the red team has been marketing directly against the RTX 4080, throwing shots at the 16-pin connectors (now confirmed as a user-error), its hugely oversized reference models and betting on its brand new set of features. The prices are very attractive at $899 and $999 US but despite that, we would recommend our readers wait for final reviews. Regardless, that doesn't change the fact that the GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card offers the worst perf to $ value at the moment.

Which flagship graphics cards are you most interested in?
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