Nvidia and its add-in-board (AIB) partners are set to release GeForce RTX 30-series ‘Ampere’ graphics cards on September 17. But before launching something new, they need to get rid of existing GeForce RTX 20-series products. Apparently, this is exactly what Asus and Zotac are doing in some countries.
Asus slashed prices of its GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics cards by 50% in the Philippines, according to its Facebook page. Zotac also cut down price of its GeForce RTX 2080 Ti board by a whopping 55% in Malaysia, the company announced. Furthermore, those who purchased the board on or after August 9 can email Zotac and get Adata’s XPG SX8200 256 GB SSD ‘as a token of sadness.’
Other makers of graphics cards in different countries have yet to announce price cuts on their GeForce RTX 20-series products, but this is something to watch closely if you are happy with performance and features provided by the previous-generation GPUs. Meanwhile, internet auctions are flooded with second-hand Turing cards. For example, it was possible to get an EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti board for $565 at press time.
Apart from the pending launch of the Ampere family of client GPUs, there is another reason why AIB suppliers are inclined to slash prices of their Turing-based graphics cards if they have many in stock. Owners of GeForce RTX 20-series boards are selling them off on internet auctions like Ebay. Competing against second-hand boards is hard even before the upcoming next-generation launch, but once the new products hit the market, it will get even harder. As a result, it makes a great sense for AIB makers to sell off their existing GeForce RTX 20-series boards if they have many of them in stock.
Sources: Asus ROG Philippines/Facebook, Zotac Malaysia/Facebook
