Many Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics cards are currently available for pre-order from a major US retailer, and the good news – well, in vogue – is that boards are priced more reasonably than some expected and even super MSRP on some other models companies.
Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab) took note of the product lists that came to Best Buy for the RTX 4090, as highlighted by one of the regular Twitter leaks we hear from, @momomo_us.
These auctions include the Gigabyte RTX 4090 WindForce and the MSI RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio, with both of these graphics cards having price tags that are the manufacturer’s suggested retail price – $ 1,599 in the US (around £ 1,460, AU $ 2,480) – exactly the same as the founders Nvidii Edition of the flagship product.
We can also see the Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC which runs with an overclocked clock (that’s what the OC in the name means) and is priced at $ 1,700 (around £ 1,550, AU $ 2,630).
Finally, there’s the MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X at $ 1,750 (around £ 1,600, AU $ 2,700), a thinner card with a fancy cooling system that uses an external 240mm heat sink to make two slots slim (all the models mentioned above occupy three PCIe slots with due to their thickness).
Analysis: Hopefully Lovelace will be nothing like Ampere for MSRP
These prices are very different from the launch of the current generation Ampere graphics cards, where all Nvidia GPUs were marked in one way or another due to a very volatile supply and demand situation (and then price inflation got even worse when it was at stake). scalpers). And of course the Team Green flagship models are already expensive enough at no extra charge.
So it’s good to see the custom RTX 4090 graphics cards appearing right away at MSRP, while the fancier models – which will always cost more – don’t come with a large additional order. There’s always the possibility that Best Buy prices might be placeholders, but with the launch in less than two weeks (October 12), we think this probably isn’t the case.
Of course, we say it’s good to see it, but what we really expect is it. You know, graphics cards priced at the recommended level, or at least some of them. With any luck, Nvidia will be able to squeeze a decent amount of chips for the RTX 4090 to avoid any shortages, but since it’s a very niche proposition – most people won’t be spending that much for an entire computer, let’s face it – the demand won’t be huge. But if stocks are low, the danger of price gouging and the like remains.
The really interesting moment will be the launch of the RTX 4080 coming in November, and how the inventory problems and prices will drop with this slightly more (relatively) affordable GPU – or at least a lower tier card with 12GB of VRAM. Yes, in case you missed it, there are two separate variants of the RTX 4080 whose smaller spec some theoretically was originally supposed to be the RTX 4070.