With Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40 Series, Are High GPU Prices the New Normal?
With CEO Jensen Huang's keynote today, Nvidia lifted the veil, at least in part, on its upcoming GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards. His presentation gave us the first confirmed, concrete details so far on the graphics giant's much-anticipated upcoming family of graphics cards, with the reveal of the high-end GeForce RTX 4090, and two versions of a step-down GeForce RTX 4080.
Naturally, performance projections were the star of the show, with Nvidia claiming that these new cards will be much faster than their old ones. But the other big takeaway: These new cards will be extremely expensive, and later cards in the series (not yet announced) could set new all-time highs, in terms of list price, for the cost of gaming. Ouch!
Graphics cards have been selling for a premium in recent years, often way above MSRP, as the dual interest in PC gaming and cryptocurrency mining has led to massive shortages. With cryptocurrency enthusiasm cooling off (the recent Ethereum merge will be a big factor accelerating that trend) and the actual hardware shortage more or less over, however, prices have been dropping closer to standard list prices for current-gen cards...or even below, i places. And all signs point to that trend continuing, at least for the near future.
But that's current cards. Nvidia threw cold water on that low-price vibe with the pricing announcement of its upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 graphics cards. Base models will cost $899 and $1,599, respectively.
If you’ve bought a card in the last year or two (or at least been window-shopping for one), these prices may not seem so bad. But it still shows an ongoing--and worrisome to consumers--trend of "price floor" increases over several generations. A few card
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