So the RTX 4080 Super is now official and is jogging onto the playing field of the GPU market alongside its 4070 Ti Super and 4070 Super colleagues. By now we know that the RTX 4080 will be replaced, but that leaves a stock-shaped elephant in the room. What happens to the existing RTX 4080 cards?
The RTX 4080’s time is ending
Naturally, we can’t know what Nvidia or its partner’s plans are. And nor can we know how much RTX 4080 stock there is in storerooms and containers around the world. But we can look at a couple of facts.
First, the RTX 4080 is being superseded, so it’s going to cease to exist and not need to co-exist in the long run. Ordinarily, scarcity of a product leads to a new premium, and graphics cards have been here before during the global COVID-19 pandemic. But what would be the reason for a premium here when the RTX 4080 Super is arriving at a $999 MSRP? That’s an MSRP that is $200 lower than the original $1,200 MSRP of the card it’s replacing.
Now this is more opinion from me than anything, but not only does that pricing suggest Nvidia slightly misfired with the original 4080 cards – remember when Team Green ‘unlaunched’ the RTX 4080 12GB – it also suggests an upcoming slide in regular RTX 4080 pricing. I mean that would be the logical step, assuming available stock and a market more interested in a new, better specced, and an ‘officially cheaper’ replacement.
Hold your horses
If you wait a week or three there may be more deals available on graphics cards. so unless you absolutely need to get one right now, I’d wait (which is what I’m doing) to see how things play out in terms of pricing. You may just get a price unthinkable a couple of months ago.
RTX 4080-price cut? Probably
Ultimately what good is it to anyone – users, partners or Nvidia itself – to have more expensive but less capable cards gathering dust? The sensible move would seem to be to drop the price of RTX 4080 overall so that those cards can be of use and not undermine Nvidia’s current deck reshuffle.
I’d be looking out for price drops around the launch of the RTX 4080 Super on January 31st, if not leading up to that date. And especially so with the RTX 4070 Ti Super arriving on January 24th priced at $799 MSRP. That gives the RTX 4080 some wiggle-room to squeeze into, where a price of between $850 and $900 would seem sensible and allow the new Supers to flourish. It remains to be seen what happens of course, but the outgoing Ada card surely walks away with a lower value that benefits PC builders and owners while getting stock sold at the same time.
