Thursday, November 10th 2022
Most Expensive RTX 4080 Custom Just $50 Shy of the RTX 4090 MSRP: MicroCenter Pricing Leak
The most expensive custom-design NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 will be priced at $1,550, putting it just $50 short of the $1,600 baseline MSRP of the much faster RTX 4090, according to a pricing leak of custom-design cards on popular PC components retailer MicroCenter. The most interesting takeaway from this leak is that there will actually be RTX 4080 cards at the NVIDIA-set baseline MSRP of $1,200. These include the GIGABYTE Eagle, ZOTAC Trinity, ASUS TUF Gaming, and PNY XLR8 Verto. NVIDIA appears to be telling its partners to sell at least one custom-design RTX 4080 SKU at the baseline price.
Most factory-overclocked custom-design RTX 4080 SKUs are within $125 of the $1,200 baseline, with the GIGABYTE Eagle OC priced at $1,240, GIGABYTE Gaming OC at $1,280, MSI Ventus 3X OC at $1,280, and the premium MSI Gaming X Trio at $1,325. The top-tier custom-design cards start here, with the GIGABYTE AORUS Master priced at $1,350, the MSI SUPRIM X (air-cooled) at $1,400, the ZOTAC AMP Extreme AIRO at $1,400, ASUS TUF Gaming OC at $1,500; and the ASUS ROG Strix OC at $1,550, which is just $50 short of the cheapest RTX 4090 (baseline-spec). Will anyone pick the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080 O16G over the cheapest RTX 4090 (assuming availability of both)? That's a social experiment to watch out for.
Sources:
MicroCenter, VideoCardz
Most factory-overclocked custom-design RTX 4080 SKUs are within $125 of the $1,200 baseline, with the GIGABYTE Eagle OC priced at $1,240, GIGABYTE Gaming OC at $1,280, MSI Ventus 3X OC at $1,280, and the premium MSI Gaming X Trio at $1,325. The top-tier custom-design cards start here, with the GIGABYTE AORUS Master priced at $1,350, the MSI SUPRIM X (air-cooled) at $1,400, the ZOTAC AMP Extreme AIRO at $1,400, ASUS TUF Gaming OC at $1,500; and the ASUS ROG Strix OC at $1,550, which is just $50 short of the cheapest RTX 4090 (baseline-spec). Will anyone pick the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080 O16G over the cheapest RTX 4090 (assuming availability of both)? That's a social experiment to watch out for.

87 Comments on Most Expensive RTX 4080 Custom Just $50 Shy of the RTX 4090 MSRP: MicroCenter Pricing Leak
These are even not in the same performance segment.
The monitor is ~2 years old, and an "upgrade" (jumping from 1440p to 4k) would cost >400€.
I don't update hardware very often, the previous monitor and cpu died on me so that's what triggered those purchases. My previous graphics card was a GTX570, so I'm looking for something that can play current games at 1440p. I have a big backlog to go through still, so I'll probably only play current gen games in about 3~4 years. If my math is correct I shouldn't need a new GFX/monitor for at least 6 years.
You can get a decent 4K monitor starting from 200€.
4K Monitor günstig kaufen | Black Friday 2022 | Preisvergleich bei idealo
Then again, gaming at 2160p is outright stupid unless you have tons of money to burn anyway. They could likely sell their LG for a decent chunk of change to finance a side-grade to a newer, better 1440p144 monitor with FreeSync/Adaptive Sync.
2160p gaming is advertised on the GFX boxes :D
And you can buy 4K 144 gaming monitor for as low as or lower than that old 2-year-old LG :D
Last i checked, marketing people absolutely love selling stupid but flashy features to people. I'd go so far as to say they'll much rather focus on something stupid than something reasonable.... yes, but - and I don't know if you actually don't know this or are just playing dumb on purpose - but you generally don't get the retail price for a product back when selling it used. And they didn't buy that LG yesterday.
I mean, you can get decent 1440p144 monitors (HP has a great 27" option that very cheap) not too far above $200. That this old LG somehow has stuck at a high price point likely just tells us that whatever stock is left over in retail channels is old unsold stock that isn't selling.
Literally none of this changes the fact that they could sell their LG, get a decent 1440p144 FS option (though wanting 32" will drive up the price by a bit) and get an affordable AMD GPU, while for their stated budget 2160p gaming makes no sense whatsoever.
They've stated they have a €400 budget for upgrades, which makes you talking about €5-600 monitors and/or 2160p gaming rather absurd. If you're trying to give advice, maybe at least try to make sure the advice fits the relevant realities at all? If your advice is either to get a crap-tier 2160p60 monitor and a cheap GPU - a setup that makes zero sense for gaming - or spend 150% of the available budget on a good gaming 2160p144 monitor, then, well, neither of those are good suggestions.
On the other hand, selling the LG, getting a good 1440p144/160/170Hz FS monitor - which can be found pretty affordably - and a good AMD GPU will likely be the best choice (unless that LG monitor is really good, which IMO is rather unlikely given its age). With the second best, but easier option being keeping the current monitor and paying the extra brand tax for an Nvidia GPU.
www.digitalfoundry.net/nvidia-ultra-performance-dlss-analysis-is-8k-gaming-viable-on-the-most-demanding-games
"Here's the Digital Foundry analysis of the RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX ... The card is capable of running games at 8K resolution "
www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2020-09-01-nvidia-announces-rtx-3090-3080-3070-ampere-graphics-cards
I think DF just got carried away by the "OMG cool new tech look how crazy powerful it is" and entirely failed to engage critically with it. Which isn't quite the same as being a shill - it just makes you a poor quality journalist.
What they can do is upscale using the worst quality upscaler (use fancier word for upscale, if it helps) and that is pretty silly to do indeed.
As for 8k gaming, if GPUs really were capable of it, 77" and even 88" 8k OLED TVs with Freesync support are on the market already, I could even imagine people with sharp eyes noticing the difference.I just think that when someone looks as NV shill for a number of occasions (the criminal energy put into shitting on FSR was impressive) she/he/xim probably is NV shill. I don't even need to read anything by them to know they are very positive of DLSS3, as, of course they would be.
The RX 6800 XT 16 GB can absolutely run 4K@200 FPS if the settings are in check and there is no reason to waste its potential with lower grade stupid garbage 1440p res..
The RTX 4090 is clearly not enough for an 8K60 target yet, and therein lies their master gimmick - DLSS frame generation, which they refuse to enable on Turing and Ampere, probably to try and bolster sales of the RTX 4090. This company is unscrupulous and will always lie about hardware requirements to upsell, it is an NVIDIA tradition, and they have done it numerous times in the past (RTX Voice, etc.), taking advantage of their closed-source, black box ecosystem to stave off official media from prying too much into it. I must confess, I'm actually developing contempt for NVIDIA's boneheaded approach. People who upgrade every single generation on day one will continue to do so. They'll finance the card in 24 months if they have to, but they will.
The whole circus with the 4090, with the low availability if you're not in a privileged country, the ultra-high prices, the design issues with power delivery that are leading to fires etc. just flipped me back to the red side. The RX 7900 XTX will be a monster, compatible with my existing base and I won't have to deal with NVIDIA's disrespect for their enthusiast customers, it's not the first time I just get burned by buying a high-end NVIDIA card, and AMD is giving us a better deal all-around.
I'll still wait some time for AMD's board partners to come up with their high-end designs, in the meantime, I just save so I don't get into any debt for it ;)
Also like you said locking software features to hardware is predatory.
Edit: I see that you're left out like Norway and Switzerland. That's too bad!