GeForce RTX 3080 Falls to $740 Amid Continued GPU Price Cuts

Multiple graphics cards from several generations
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Just a few months ago, the best graphics cards remained difficult to find at "reasonable" prices. Nvidia launched the RTX 3090 Ti at a then-obscene $1,999 MSRP at the end of March, for example. Today, retail prices have dropped as much as 43% — close to half off! Other cards have become much more affordable as well, and only a handful of GPUs remain above their official MSRPs.

Where 2020 and 2021 were a perfect storm of converging factors, including the pandemic, supply chain issues, and skyrocketing cryptocurrency prices, we're now seeing an about-face in nearly all areas. Crypto prices and mining profitability are tanking, inventory of current generation cards is "too high," and most of the supply chain kinks are being worked out. With Nvidia RTX 40-series Ada GPUs expected to debut in the next month or so, and AMD's RX 7000-series RDNA 3 parts not far behind, manufacturers are doing their best to clear the way for the upcoming launches, especially at the high-end and extreme ends of the market.

Unlike our GPU price index, which focuses on eBay prices in monthly chunks, here we want to look primarily at retail prices on new graphics cards. We're specifically looking at US prices, and we mostly won't bother with any previous generation GPUs, though there are a few Nvidia Turing models (RTX 2060 and GTX 16-series) that remain in production and are thus included.

Here's the full rundown of current retail prices, as of September 6 — do note that all of these are prone to sometimes large fluctuations. For example, short-term sales (like Labor Day) can hack off another 5–10% from the prices shown here.

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Graphics Card Prices, September 2022 — Retail and eBay
GPUBest Retail Price31-Day eBay Avg.Launch MSRPMonthly Price Change
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti$1,100$1,247$2,000-21.4%
GeForce RTX 3090$1,080$957$1,500-10.3%
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti$810$836$1,200-14.7%
GeForce RTX 3080 12GB$760$771?-4.9%
GeForce RTX 3080$740$665$700-7.5%
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti$625$547$600-7.3%
GeForce RTX 3070$540$463$500-1.8%
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti$450$424$400-4.5%
GeForce RTX 3060$370$339$330-5.1%
GeForce RTX 3050$300$279$2500.0%
Radeon RX 6950 XT$910$914$1,100-9.0%
Radeon RX 6900 XT$700$685$1,000-6.5%
Radeon RX 6800 XT$600$563$650-10.4%
Radeon RX 6800$560$486$580-3.5%
Radeon RX 6750 XT$460$456$550-8.0%
Radeon RX 6700 XT$420$378$480-6.5%
Radeon RX 6700$420$370$480
Radeon RX 6650 XT$314$345$500-7.7%
Radeon RX 6600 XT$300$274$380-3.2%
Radeon RX 6600$240$232$330-7.7%
Radeon RX 6500 XT$162$153$200-3.8%
Radeon RX 6400$135$143$160-3.6%
GeForce RTX 2060$230$217$350
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti$230$172$280
GeForce GTX 1660 Super$210$178$230
GeForce GTX 1660$209$154$220
GeForce GTX 1650 Super$198$147$160
GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6$190$135$150
GeForce GTX 1650$180$135$150
GeForce GTX 1630$155$245?
Intel Arc A380$140$194$140

Compared to the August 2022 retail GPU prices, graphics cards have dropped an average of 7%. We haven't tracked retails prices for Nvidia's Turing cards, and the Intel Arc A380 is new to the list (along with the RX 6700 non-XT), but the more expensive cards show the largest deltas.

Nvidia's highest-end RTX 3090 Ti GPU now sells for 45% less than its official launch MSRP — and Nvidia itself leads the way, as the cheapest card is the RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition from Best Buy. That's another 21% decrease since last month! The RTX 3090 costs basically just as much, while Newegg has the RTX 3080 Ti for $809.99 (after a $40 instant rebate) — another large 15% drop. The RTX 3070 through 3080 still sell for slightly more than MSRP, but they're getting closer and should soon fall below that mark, assuming they're not simply discontinued to make way for new models. Meanwhile, the RTX 3050 through 3060 Ti are still going for 12–20% more than MSRP. That's probably because Nvidia doesn't plan to replace the budget and midrange offerings with new RTX 40-series GPUs until next year.

Flipping over to the AMD side of things, AMD's GPUs have mostly been selling below MSRP for a couple of months now, but now even the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 are joining the fun. The Radeon RX 6900 XT for $699.99 looks particularly tasty — there's also an MSI RX 6900 XT with a rebate for that same price, though we don't particularly like mail-in rebates. If you're hoping to pay less than $500, or maybe even closer to $250, the Radeon RX 6600 for $249.99 is almost impossible to beat right now. Nvidia's closest alternative is the previous generation RTX 2060 for $229.99 — it's actually faster for ray tracing, particularly with DLSS, but up to 20% slower in standard gaming performance.

However you slice it, the RTX 2060 and RX 6600 make the prospects for anything that costs less than $200 rather unappetizing. Yes, they cost more than cards like the RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT, but they're also up to twice the performance. If you want a cheap card that might actually improve in performance over the coming months, Intel's Arc A380 at $139.99 has some excellent video codec hardware, though it's currently backordered — and gaming performance can be a bit iffy at times.

Multiple graphics cards from several generations

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

GPU Prices: What to Expect Next Month

Again, there are multiple GPUs all slated to launch within the next few months. I think there's a good chance we'll see Nvidia release RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 cards by October, with the GTC 2022 keynote likely digging into some of the architecture. However, it's also possible Nvidia will start with the rumored 48GB Ada card, which could be a new Titan — with a suitably high (obscene) price. We'll find out on September 20.

AMD's plans aren't quite as clear. It demonstrated working RDNA 3 silicon during it's Ryzen 7000 announcement. While the CPUs will go on sale September 27, I think RDNA 3 graphics cards won't land at retail until late November, give or take a couple of weeks — basically a repeat of the RX 6000-series launch. I'd love to be wrong, though, and it would be far better for AMD to get RX 7000 cards out the door in October, so that they're available for the holiday shopping spree that takes place throughout November and December.

Intel's not going to be left out of the fun this year either, if the latest indications are anything to go by. The drivers continue to get regular updates, and the worst bugs and issues are being squashed. Rumors indicate an "imminent" launch for the Arc A770 and A750, and possibly A580 as well, which could happen before the end of the month — certainly by October. If pricing looks anything like the A380, Intel will be aggressive and try to get cards off the shelves rather than stagnating any further. Could we see better than RTX 3060 Ti performance from the Arc A770 for under $400? That would make the most sense, as Intel's still the newcomer to the graphics scene.

All of those upcoming GPUs mean the existing cards will, if anything, have to continue to drop in price. For high-end cards that should be eclipsed by RDNA 3 and Ada Lovelace offerings, we definitely recommend a "wait and see" approach. We may even see midrange cards drop further in pricing to clear inventory and perhaps keep people from buying Intel's new GPUs, but there's not much room to go lower than the $250 range.

Jarred Walton

Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.

  • ThatMouse
    I'm so tired of the GPU snobs. "Oh why buy a 3080 when you can get a 4080 in October?" Good luck with that.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    Price "falls" to $740 but another story on Tom's says "https://www.tomshardware.com/news/geforce-rtx-3080-20gb-gpus-emerge-for-around-dollar575" the price of the 3080 has a long way to drop yet if the other story is true.
    Reply
  • King_V
    Oh, look, EVERY price for the Nvidia cards is still above MSRP. As if there was an "It's Nvidia, of course you're expected to pay extra" kind of attitude lingering about.

    @thisisaname - yeah, but that just references a claim made by a Twitter user. I'd write that off as rumor, or possibly a BS tweet, until said card actually gets released. Assuming it ever does.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    King_V said:
    Oh, look, EVERY price for the Nvidia cards is still above MSRP. As if there was an "It's Nvidia, of course you're expected to pay extra" kind of attitude lingering about.

    @thisisaname - yeah, but that just references a claim made by a Twitter user. I'd write that off as rumor, or possibly a BS tweet, until said card actually gets released. Assuming it ever does.

    About the only Nvidia card below the MSRP is the 3090 and it's variants, which is why a put falls in quotes.
    As for the leaks I 100% agree with you until people can buy it I will take this rumour with a sea full of salt. I find it funny the rumoured better spec'd card is rumoured to have a lower price than any 3080 out now.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    thisisaname said:
    About the only Nvidia card below the MSRP is the 3090 and it's variants, which is why a put falls in quotes.
    As for the leaks I 100% agree with you until people can buy it I will take this rumour with a sea full of salt. I find it funny the rumoured better spec'd card is rumoured to have a lower price than any 3080 out now.
    First, you might try reading the article and paying attention to the table, and the headline. Most cards are at or near MSRP, some are far below it, but the headline mentioned neither. 3080, 3070, 3060, and 3050 are the only GPUs that cost more than MSRP at retail. The table also shows month over month price cuts at retail, which average out to 7%. The RTX 3050 is the only card that didn't get any cheaper at retail since August 1.

    Second, as King_V points out, someone in Asia posting about RTX 3080 20GB cards going on sale on third party markets isn't at all the same thing as brand new cards at retail. How old are those 3080 20GB cards? Maybe MSI could tell us, but I suspect those were made a long time ago. For all we know, they're even first generation silicon just with 2GB chips, so they might not even have the anti-Ethereum "lock" (that's been broken for a while now) in place. The main point with the 3080 20GB is to show just how close such cards likely were to seeing a full retail launch. If Covid and the resulting supply chain disruption (plus crypto) hadn't happened, maybe we would have had 3080 20GB instead of 3080 12GB. Because even though the 12GB model was likely better for gaming, mining is almost certainly what pushed anyone toward releasing a card with more bandwidth. Then the people that think 20GB would be so much more beneficial than 16GB or 10GB could have paid $150 extra for the privilege.
    Reply
  • King_V
    Addendum: I should've said "Except for the ones where the crypto-craze pricing was baked into the MSRP, and therefore, ridiculous in their own right" (looking at you, 3080 Ti, 3090, and 3090 Ti)
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    . Most cards are at or near MSRP,
    That maybe true but that is not below MSRP which was my point.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    MSRP has always been meaningless in the GPU world unless you're talking about reference editions, which very few of are produced anymore, as it's far more profitable for AIBs to produce their own custom versions and slap a price increase, which can amount to $100 or more, on top of AMD and nVidia's set MSRP.
    Reply
  • DSzymborski
    Also important to remember that there's been about 13-14% inflation in the two years since release, so $699 in 2020 is not $699 in 2022, not to mention that $699 was the MSRP before the tariff exemptions expired.
    Reply
  • LolaGT
    Regardless of reference or aib, $740 is way overvalued for any 3080, by a couple three hundred.
    Reply