We reviewed the GeForce RTX 4080 earlier this week and found that the graphics card is roughly 50 percent faster than its GeForce RTX 3080 predecessor, easily placing it as one of the best graphics cards available. The RTX 4080 went on sale early Wednesday morning, with Best Buy selling out of Founders Edition and third-party boards within minutes, while Newegg hung on for roughly an hour before all cards went out of stock.
Given the limited availability, scalpers have already descended upon us to resell the cards at exorbitant prices. While Newegg doesn’t have any RTX 4080 cards to sell directly to customers, sellers on its marketplace are unloading them with large markups. For example, the Gigabyte Aero OC GeForce RTX 4080 retails for $1,299, but one seller lists the card in stock at $1,688. For reference, the flagship RTX 4090 Founder Edition has an MSRP of $1,599. That same seller has the MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 4080 in stock with a $357 markup compared to its retail price.
Shortly after the RTX 4080 went on sale yesterday, the eBay marketplace had roughly 20 listings priced at $1,699 and above. As of this writing, there are 163 listings for RTX 4080 cards, the cheapest of which is the Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Trinity at $1,564.95. For reference, the retail price for that card is $1,199. Cards like the Gigabyte Gaming OC GeForce RTX 4080 retail for $1,269, but eBay scalpers are amazingly asking as much as $2,099. These sellers all claim to have the cards in-hand, ready to ship.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any production figures for the RTX 4080, so we don’t know if the quick sellouts and subsequent scalper frenzy are the product of true enthusiast excitement, or if supply was extremely limited coming out of the starting gate. With that said, it could be a while before we see RTX 4080 prices stabilize.
Another thing to watch is how big of a splash the AMD Radeon RTX 7900 XT and RTX 7900 XTX make when they arrive on the market. AMD announced its next-generation RDNA 3 graphics cards earlier this month, and they go on sale December 12th. AMD is positioning the RX 7900 XTX as a direct competitor to the RTX 4080, which will be an interesting battle considering that the former carries an MSRP of $999. The RX 7900 XT is cheaper still at $899.
Stay tuned for further updates on GeForce RTX 4080 pricing and our upcoming reviews of the Radeon RTX 7900 XT and RTX 7900 XTX. Should the new entries from AMD prove to be performance juggernauts among our GPU benchmark hierarchy, Nvidia might have to rethink its pricing position going forward.
