Nvidia RTX 4090 pricing is too damn high, while most other GPUs have held steady or declined in past 6 months — market analysis
Our study of graphics card pricing from June to present shows few wild swings.
Finding the right graphics card for your PC involves research, along with an assessment of the things you need, not to mention your finances. We've been checking retail prices in the U.S. monthly, on all of the latest graphics cards, and we decided to take a closer look at the trends as 2023 winds down. Many of these rank among the best graphics cards, including the Nvidia RTX 40-series, AMD RX 7000-series, and Intel Arc GPUs.
Prices do fluctuate quite a bit within a month — for example, during November's Black Friday and Cyber Monday madness, we saw prices on many of these GPUs drop by up to 20%. Except, some of those "drops" were relative to pre-inflated prices from the start of November. That's just one of the many things that show up in our charts. The other major highlight is just how much RTX 4090 prices have increased in the past few months. Overall, though, we see surprising consistency in pricing on most models since June, with just a few wild swings up or down.
We have pricing tables alongside the charts below with U.S. prices as of December 1, 2023, though if you want up-to-date pricing, check our GPU price index. We've dropped Nvidia's RTX 30-series from the list, as it's mostly discontinued now (other than 3050/3060 cards). And again, note that these are retail prices for new graphics cards — we've eliminated refurbished, used, and open-box listings from consideration.
Most of the RTX 40-series pricing has been relatively static, perhaps with a very slight downward trend. The major exception is the RTX 4090, which has shot up from a low of around $1,550 back in June, to over $2,000 at present. The primary cause appears to be the U.S. export restrictions on the RTX 4090, which has caused some people to begin hoarding RTX 4090 cards — which they'll have to try to sneak into China, most likely.
This, in turn, appears to have had a slight knock-on effect where the RTX 4080 prices have increased around 10% since early November, though we did at least see some decent sales on that GPU during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday timeframe. There's also the rumored impending launch of the RTX 4080 Super, which will likely replace the vanilla 4080. So clearing out "old" inventory before that launch (likely in January) makes sense.
The RTX 4070 Ti and below are all basically flat in terms of price trends, though the 4070 Ti has dropped a bit from its $799 launch price, and the same goes for the RTX 4060 Ti. Those both had... well, let's just call them overly ambitious prices on the part of Nvidia. The Black Friday deals on several of those brought them down to where we really feel they should have stayed, but we'll have to see where the various rumored RTX 40-series Super models land. RTX 4060 has dropped $10 from its launch MSRP, with a few minor fluctuations — though note that, as with all of the least expensive GPUs, sometimes the cheapest models have worse cooling and noise characteristics.
AMD's RX 7000-series has been a bit sporadic of late, particularly on the top RTX 7900 XTX and RTX 7900 XT models. Those hit their best relative lows in October, but again we saw some good deals near the end of last month. There are rumors the RX 7900 XTX could start to see higher prices, due to the RTX 4090 shenanigans mentioned above, though so far it's at least staying below its launch MSRP. The 7900 XT meanwhile saw an upward blip at the start of November, before falling back to roughly the same price as in October — likely an attempt to make those BF/CM "deals" look more enticing.
The RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT have seen very little movement since they launched in mid-July. As noted at the time, the 7800 XT was the more desirable card, and with only a $50 price premium, most people should look to that GPU. This is probably why the 7700 XT has dropped $20. RX 7600 meanwhile shows the same minor blip at the start of November, but has generally been selling in the $240–$250 range.
GPU Model | Best US Price | Lowest-Ever U.S. Price |
---|---|---|
Radeon RX 6950 XT | $808 | $569 |
Radeon RX 6900 XT | $699 | $529 |
Radeon RX 6800 XT | $439 | $439 |
Radeon RX 6800 | $399 | $369 |
Radeon RX 6750 XT | $379 | $321 |
Radeon RX 6700 XT | $299 | $299 |
Radeon RX 6700 10GB | $280 | $229 |
Radeon RX 6650 XT | $209 | $209 |
Radeon RX 6600 XT | $245 | $219 |
Radeon RX 6600 | $184 | $174 |
Radeon RX 6500 XT | $130 | $129 |
Radeon RX 6400 | $129 | $129 |
We've split the AMD RX 6000-series into two charts, as there are so many of them available. Obviously, availability of the RX 6950 XT and RX 6900 XT has become far less predictable, and we suspect most of those were sold off during BF/CM this past month — one final hurrah for the highest performance RDNA 2 GPUs. Just in time, too, as there's not much reason to pay more for one of those GPUs when the RX 7800 XT delivers similar performance alongside some new features.
Nearly everything below the top two models has been on a steady downward trend, basically going back to last year's RDNA 3 launches. The only exception is the RX 6700 10GB, which was never widely available and now seems to be largely out of stock — Newegg no longer lists any cards, and prices are flat since last month, after increasing from August through November.
The RX 6600-class and below also saw a jump in prices between June and July, and in many cases we haven't quite matched the previous low.
Intel's Arc GPUs had some of the best deals during Black Friday, but now they're back to "normal." The Arc A750 remains an impressive deal, currently matching the newer (and slower) Arc A580 on price. The A770 8GB seems to be largely out of stock, or at least prices increased a lot since October's low of $239 — and it was briefly on sale for $199 for Black Friday. Now it costs as much as the more desirable A770 16GB, and it's hard to justify the existence of the A770 8GB when the A750 and A580 overlap it in so many ways.
As for the bottom-tier A380 (we haven't tracked the A310), we've routinely seen it selling at $100, including during much of November. But now the cheapest models are back to $120. If you're still thinking about picking up an A380, we suggest waiting for the next sale to drop it below $100. There's not much point in spending more than that when the sales are so frequent.
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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.
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digitalgriffin The 4090 D will undermine inflated prices scalpers are demanding for 4090s. The raster and rt will be roughly the same. Just less ai tensor cores. So you can get 4090d for 1600 or pay scalpers 2000+ if you need ai.Reply
Grumpy cat says "Good " -
valthuer Admin said:Most of the RTX 40-series pricing has been relatively static, perhaps with a very slight downward trend. The major exception is the RTX 4090, which has shot up from a low of around $1,550 back in June, to over $2,000 at present
This goes on to show that it's 4090 or bust with the 4000 series.
Nvidia did a good job this gen in making the 4090 an out of this world upgrade while the rest of the 4000 series complete garbage.
Probably to boost 4090 sales. :ROFLMAO:
The current 4090 prices are exorbitant, but Nvidia isn't going to lower them when they have no competition.
Business is business. -
vanadiel007 7900XTX is looking very good, considering the price difference with the 4080 and 4090. Combined with the well designed Adrenalin software package, it's a good deal if you ask me.Reply -
atomicWAR Glad my wife and I got our 4090s at msrp. Scalpers really might destroy PC gaming if this keeps happening every generation or two....assuming Jensen doesn't price everyone out of the market first.Reply
As a high end buyer, most times, I expect to pay for what I get. But its what is happening lower down the stack that concerns me. Being over priced and under performaniant compared to previous gen, things don't look good for mid range PC gamers imho. This needs to change. -
valthuer atomicWAR said:Glad my wife and I got our 4090s at msrp. Scalpers really might destroy PC gaming if this keeps happening every generation or two....assuming Jensen doesn't price everyone out of the market first.
As a high end buyer, most times, I expect to pay for what I get. But its what is happening lower down the stack that concerns me. Being over priced and under performaniant compared to previous gen, things don't look good for mid range PC gamers imho. This needs to change.
Yeah, scalpers are a scourge, slightly similar to the miners.
I live in Greece, i bought my 4090 back in June, for 1.920€, and i still think i'm lucky, considering the fact that certain versions of 4090 have gone as high as 3.000€!
You are right about mid-range. Sad thing is, we, consumers, can do little to nothing to change this situation.
Unless AMD or Intel provide the market with some competitive products, i expect this trend to continue.
Of course, the AI frenzy is always around, to make matters even worse: as long as Nvidia keep earning their billions from selling AI solutions, they have zero incentive to lower the prices. -
emike09 Ya'll should have just got a 4090 after it was released. It's stupidly expensive, yes, but compared to the 4080 and sub-models and their prices, it was actually a good value compared to them. I bought an MSI 4090 Suprim X 240mm liquid model for $1750. I'm seeing prices as high as $2800 for that model right now.Reply
With the extreme price in mind - the resell price is also very high later down the road. Sure, you'll spend way too much for it now, but you can sell it later and still recoup ~75%+ of the initial cost when the next gen comes out. -
valthuer emike09 said:Ya'll should have just got a 4090 after it was released. It's stupidly expensive, yes, but compared to the 4080 and sub-models and their prices, it was actually a good value compared to them. I bought an MSI 4090 Suprim X 240mm liquid model for $1750. I'm seeing prices as high as $2800 for that model right now.
With the extreme price in mind - the resell price is also very high later down the road. Sure, you'll spend way too much for it now, but you can sell it later and still recoup ~75%+ of the initial cost when the next gen comes out.
You did well to buy it right from the start. And i don't even think it's too "stupidly expensive" for what you are getting.
It's a quantum leap in performance improvement over the 3090 and it's pretty much the only card that will cap 60 fps in 4K Ultra.
Think about it this way: you paid $1750 for the best GPU that gives amazing performance... and you have no GPU worries for the next 4-5 years at a minimum.
Personally, i can't say i was first in line... I was more late to the party... but I'm here now and I am enjoying it. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
Anyway... I would love to know Nvidia's profit margins on the 4090. I honestly have no idea what their cost is. -
Phaaze88
You might not get quite that much back compared to the air cooled ones, but it's still something.emike09 said:MSI 4090 Suprim X 240mm liquid model for $1750. I'm seeing prices as high as $2800 for that model right now.
... the resell price is also very high later down the road. Sure, you'll spend way too much for it now, but you can sell it later and still recoup ~75%+ of the initial cost when the next gen comes out.
The AIO model has more points of failure, and in the inevitable failure, a replacement cooler may be hard to find for the potential buyer once the AIO keels over... unless they can find only the Suprim X cooler being sold for parts.
I dislike that I have no choice but to wait and see how this turns out. I know they don't want a repeat of the 1080Ti any time soon.valthuer said:you have no GPU worries for the next 4-5 years at a minimum.
Nvidia rather a customer keeps buying their hardware every few years or less, than going for as long as 5. They'll likely create some new feature(s), or improve the current ones enough that'll tempt even 4090 owners to switch.
Argh, is there a psychic who knows the answer?! -
tyns78
So original MSRP for a nerfed card is a win for the consumer? This is the new norm, get used to it. We’re lucky nVidia is using fab capacity to make gaming cards instead of just pumping out higher margin DC cards - which is why they’re charging so much for the gaming cards now. Otherwise, why would they bother?digitalgriffin said:The 4090 D will undermine inflated prices scalpers are demanding for 4090s. The raster and rt will be roughly the same. Just less ai tensor cores. So you can get 4090d for 1600 or pay scalpers 2000+ if you need ai.
Grumpy cat says "Good "