Monday, January 17th 2022
NVIDIA's Custom RTX 3090 Ti Graphics Cards Reach $4,000 Pricing in Europe
NVIDIA's RTX 3090 Ti is hot on the presses, and while actual product availability is anyone's guess, the card has already been made available for order (in extremely limited quantities, as one might expect). That said, the lack of a clear pricing messaging from NVIDIA seems to have left the door open for truly egregious pricing practices, which are likely added to at every step of the supply chain from the green team's AIB (add-in-board) partners and their custom RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. Case in point: European, Swiss retailer Top Preise has started listing the latest NVIDIA halo card at a cool, not at all jaw-dropping average of €3,600 ($4,000). This is easily the highest-ever-pricing practiced on a consumer-level graphics card, so if anything, 2022 seems to have at least brought us that particular record-setting. Of course, pricing of a single retailer doesn't prove a pricing trend; but the fact that the cards are priced at untidy values does seem to indicate these aren't placeholder values.
This is much the case as has happened with NVIDIA's recent launch of the RTX 3080 12 GB - that card too didn't receive public MSRP guidance from NVIDIA, leaving its board partners - and retailers - to carve whatever pricing philosophy they deem adequate, considering the current state of the market, expected demand for NVIDIA's latest and greatest, and, of course, additional profits. Considering how the RTX 3080 12 GB has been found in store shelves for around $1,700 (remember the original MSRP for the RTX 3080 8 GB was set at $699), an upgrade to the RTX 3090 Ti would be a very expensive, $2,300 proposition for a relatively small performance improvement.
Sources:
Top Preise, Tom's Hardware
This is much the case as has happened with NVIDIA's recent launch of the RTX 3080 12 GB - that card too didn't receive public MSRP guidance from NVIDIA, leaving its board partners - and retailers - to carve whatever pricing philosophy they deem adequate, considering the current state of the market, expected demand for NVIDIA's latest and greatest, and, of course, additional profits. Considering how the RTX 3080 12 GB has been found in store shelves for around $1,700 (remember the original MSRP for the RTX 3080 8 GB was set at $699), an upgrade to the RTX 3090 Ti would be a very expensive, $2,300 proposition for a relatively small performance improvement.
111 Comments on NVIDIA's Custom RTX 3090 Ti Graphics Cards Reach $4,000 Pricing in Europe
4070 = $999
4080 = $1499
4090 = $1999
After scalpers and miners (if it's still going strong) will snag up a majority of these cards. Maybe 5% will actually get out to people that want them for gaming. Once scalpers get them and put them up for sale, I'd guess prices will look like this:
4070 = $1899
4080 = $2500
4090 = $3500
At this point people will be kicking themselves for not spending $1000 on a 3070 from the previous gen or $1500 on a 3080.....folks will be clamoring for the 30xx models since they're older and cheaper, but in reality, they won't drop in prices. The prices will be lower than the 40xx series, but they'll still be high for the 30xx. You'll still have the 3060Ti going upwards of $900, the 3070 going upwards of $1200 the 3080 going upwards of $1500 and 3090s still in that $2k range. The new GPUs won't change anything, prices will still be out of control.
But, hopefully that's not true. Maybe the bubble will burst by then.
Cards that can be used for ETH mining are worth whatever profit their relative performace can generate and everything else is priced accordingly because of the scarcity that ETH mining creates in the GPU market.
As long as the MSRPs are lower than what ETH miners will pay for, the cards will fly off the shelves, assuming they aren't sold direct from distributor before ever getting near a shelf!
$500 consoles *do* cost $800 right now, and you can't do shit without a TV to plug it into, so lets call it $1000 minimum price of entry.
Search the web for any of hundreds of "best sub-$1000 gaming laptops" and you get a plethora of options ranging in quality and performance but if you want good quality you can still find many deals using 9th Gen i7 and RTX2060 with a 144Hz display. If you want to go cheap and nasty build quality you can get a newer Acer Nitro 5 with a pretty decent R5 5600H and RTX3060.
I'm basically saying that for the real world price of current consoles, you can get a huge choice of competent gaming laptops ranging from a 1660Ti at the lowest end of the GPU spectrum to a 3060 at the highest end of the spectrum, and you don't need to deal with scalpers, waiting lists, queues or "shuffles" to get them. Not only do they have most of the games consoles have (even if you have to wait a bit for the console's 1st-party exclusives) but you also have a wealth of amazing games that consoles will never get, or will only get a port of the game many months or years later, and forced to isolate in the "console peasant" matchmaking pool with other "console peasants". Guess what, the laptop is also, uh, a fully-functional laptop that does everything a PC can do but a console can't.
Life really isn't great on consoles, it's just that the grass always looks greener on the other side. Console 4K60 isn't really 4K, and console graphics settings aren't high or ultra. So many titles are locked to 30fps at 4K too. They're usually some carefully customised blend of medium settings for the most part with higher postprocessing and effects, all rendered at variable resolution and upscaled to half-4K checkerboard or something like that.
YES YOU!!
You the user that buys graphic cards for 150%-200% of their MSRP.
Even a 20% increase in MSRP is too much, but, people keep buying them like there is no tomorrow...
Just go on the Recent Egg webstore and you will see 6900XT being sold with 60-100% markup and that is not coming from Hong Kong or some other shady scalper... its the official Recent Egg pricing...
Do you know why its like that?? Because people BUY them... and same thing on that Shuffle scalping... now everything goes on there!!! even cases!!
Go and buy shit on Tiny Middle or at Superior Purchase at MSRP in store.
Got a EVGA RTX 3060 four months ago for $430.
www.pccasegear.com/products/52906/asus-rog-strix-geforce-rtx-3090-oc-24gb-white
Gamers (also like me) refusing to buy price-inflated cards for gaming is not going make the slightest bit of difference to the supply and demand curve that affects pricing. For every gamer GPU there are 10 small-scale ETH miner purchases, and that's ignoring the big warehouse mining operations that will purchase allocation directly from manufacturers in quantities of 5000 or more.
First of all, normally, people already have a TV at home...
Second you buy a $1000Laptop now and you will play games at med right now and low settings in 2 years... then you will want to upgrade...
On a console... you stay 6-10 years... and with a big screen TV at 4K.You are partially right, miners play a big part, but miners are not absorbing 100% of the cards. The cards that are in stock at online stores would be gone if that was the case. which means a lot of cards are at retailers waiting for gamers, and because people are buying them the price does not fall.
$500 consoles are selling for $800 on ebay because you can't easily buy them at MSRP from anywhere else. Prove me wrong. I'm not in the US, I'm just seeing "out of stock" at retail, and seeing the actual available prices on ebay.com
I picked a laptop because that matches $1000 very easily and there are literally hundreds of up to date guides on sub-$1000 gaming laptops. If you want to apples-to-apples and omit the display then you can get $500 graphics cards new or used to put in a $200-300 refurb HP office PC without issue. There's no shortage of videos and guides on how to do that if you don't have an existing PC to upgrade with a GPU. Prove me wrong; You don't need to spend stupid money to get a decent gaming experience.
You say a console lasts 6-10 years but the base PS4 and XBOne from 8 years ago have been seriously struggling for the last half decade. If you want to play modern games to their best you need the updated PS4Pro or One X otherwise you're looking at sub-1080p to hit 30fps in many AAA titles today. Again, prove me wrong. I have a base XBOne and saying I got 6 years out of it is stretching the truth, if not completely false.
If you want 4K60 on current gen consoles today, you're going to struggle for many of the AAA titles. DigitalFoundry does great frametime and resolution analysis of new console releases and at best, games will dynamically drop resolution to maintain 60fps in a performance preset or they will drop to a locked 30fps mode for the 4K quality preset. At least you often get the choice now, which is something previous generation console users couldn't count on!
Even with massive, demanding AAA titles like Forza5, you can find in-depth analysis like the aforementioned DigitalFoundry one that proves using developer-provided exact XB Series-X quality settings that a 2060Super can get 40-45FPS in the exact same "4K Quality" preset that is locked to 30fps on the best hardware this generation of consoles has to offer. These aren't my claims, this is careful, in-depth, independent proof that I'm not talking BS. If you disagree, go and hammer on DigitalFoundry but as far as I'm concerned, their reputation for unbiased journalism is untarnished to date.
You will undoubtedly find exceptions, but if the AAA titles that define next-gen consoles and high-end graphics cards are your point of contention, the 2060S, available used for about $500-600, and available new in laptops for sensible sub-$1000 prices will outperform the Series X by 30% or more. You also get superior raytracing and DLSS to lean on, if the performance advantage in like-for-like comparisons isn't enough to win the argument already.
I'm just stating facts to bring him up to speed, no opinion; If he wants to play the evidence-denier/antivaxx/flat-earth approach then I enjoy knocking such arguments over.
If the GPU market is still this bad in 2026, then I may rejoin the ranks of full-time console peasant too.
Here's the exact timestamp of a 2060S doing 40ish fps where an XBSX is locked to 30:
2060S isn't exactly silly expensive, it's certainly less to buy than an XBSX right now:
£450 on ebay uk, $500-600 ebay us.
Laptops under $1000 with an RTX 3060 that are even faster than the 2060S?
www.google.com/search?q=3060+laptop+under+%241000
It's not rocket science, you're just choosing to be obtuse.
Absolutely not a guarantee but over the last 2 months Bitcoin and ETH values have halved, which has more than halved mining profitability.
No one listens... people keep going on Shuffle to see if they have the "honor" of paying for overpriced gear!on 4K?
I also have a 2060 on an Asus TUF FA506, but struggle to get decent FPS on 2560x1080 monitor.
A laptop 2060 MaxQ runs CS:GO at >144fps at 4K
A pair of 3090s in SLI only hits 50-55fps at 4K in CP 2077 Raytracing: Ultra without DLSS reducing the resolution.
Edit:
A little bit of coffee-break YouTubing makes it look like a 2060 laptop will handle 1440p60 in many current games, with a 1660Ti doing similarly at 1080p.
Since you're running halfway between those resolutions the 2060 should be fine. What game(s) does it struggle with?
Bruh... the 3060 mobile is around 13% slower than a 2060S
3060M VS 2060S
You need at least 3070M to get 2060S performance. Right now at newegg the cheapest laptop with that is $1.487.
Btw if I was in USA I could have bought 3 PS5 at MSRP already... I registered to buy directly from Sony and got chosen 3 times already, so I can say its not that hard to find consoles at MSRP, unlike any other type of gear atm.I can't see this thing doing playable 4k on AAA games... but I will try this weekend on my TV.