Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition Review: 4K performance and efficiency champ that deserves sub-US$1,000 pricing

[Redaktion]

The AD103-based Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 is the company's mainstream flagship gaming GPU based on the new Ada architecture. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition comes across as a capable 4K Ultra gaming GPU with excellent thermals, noise characteristics, and power efficiency. However, the US$1,200 asking price raises questions on the card's prospects in light of the looming threat from the competition.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-RTX-4080-Founders-Edition-Review-4K-performance-and-efficiency-champ-that-deserves-sub-US-1-000-pricing.668635.0.html

[RobertJasiek]

"The RTX 4080's 12VHPWR connector has been largely uneventful as well."

As Gamers Nexus and others have found, a meltdown can occur within seconds. You ought not to underplay the fire hazard!

The same Blender CUDA value for 4080 and 4090 is bizarre. Either the chip design is flawed, the driver has the most serious bug, Nvidia cripples the cards intentionally or Blender 3.3 has a bug related to the RTX 4000 driver.

The reasons why I do not buy a 4080 (yet):
- The fire hazard persists.
- Blender CUDA fails.
- The MSRPs are €520 too high.
- Retailers further increase street prices.

[Vaidyanathan]

"The RTX 4080's 12VHPWR connector has been largely uneventful as well."

As Gamers Nexus and others have found, a meltdown can occur within seconds. You ought not to underplay the fire hazard!

The same Blender CUDA value for 4080 and 4090 is bizarre. Either the chip design is flawed, the driver has the most serious bug, Nvidia cripples the cards intentionally or Blender 3.3 has a bug related to the RTX 4000 driver.

The reasons why I do not buy a 4080 (yet):
- The fire hazard persists.
- Blender CUDA fails.
- The MSRPs are €520 too high.
- Retailers further increase street prices.

What I meant was, a good majority of reports have been pertaining to the RTX 4090's connector than that of the 4080's. Understandable, considering that the card can potentially pull almost 2x as much power compared to the 4080, so the risk of hazard goes up as much.

Of course, due care must be exercised while connecting any power/data cable — 12VHPWR or otherwise. It might take some time for the market to get used to how the new connector properly "clicks" into place in the manner that GN so nicely pointed out.

I've shared the 4080's Blender 3.3 results as well with Nvidia. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them soon. :)

[indy]

Price seems fair considering there is nothing that can touch it currently, or the 4090.

NVidia deserves to set whatever price they want. AMD's chance next, and hopefully we'll see some significant drops soon with competition.

We can all breathe a little bit better now that game GPU crypto mining is basically dead and these cards won't be hoarded for that, at least.

[RobertJasiek]

Price seems fair considering there is nothing that can touch it currently, or the 4090.

Geforce has had two major price categories: halo products (Titan, 3090 TI, 3090, 4090) and ordinary products with a more or less reasonable relation between speed and price (3050 to 3080 10GB). Then there have been products in between (2080 TI, 3080 TI at launch, 3080 12GB at launch), of which the 3000 series models fell to the price category of the ordinary products after the crypto boom was over and until the end of generation shortage started (ca. March to October 2022).

The 3080 10GB was €699 (German MSRP of Founders Edition) and marked the upper end of the ordinary products category. The 4080 16GB at €1469 and the planned 4080 12GB, however, have been priced as part of the halo products. From €699 to €1469 is a price increment by the factor 2.1 while both are labelled in the 80 tier of GPUs.

Either 3080 10GB at €699 was fair or 4080 16GB at €1469 is fair but one cannot call both prices fair. I considered 3080 10GB at €699 fair and would have bought some AIB model if available for a non-mining price. If I wanted a halo product despite high TDP (too much for me as to noise, heat in summer and power bill) and if it had no fire hazard, I would call 4090 at €1949 fair as a halo product price. I do not accept 4080 as a halo product and "small 4090" so consider its price unfair. 4080 in the ordinary products category and priced accordingly given inflation and currency rate changes I would consider fair at €950 (or €949 if you prefer), but not a cent more because everything above would be a price increment not reflecting inflation and currency rate changes.

Since you consider it fair that 4080 is priced as a halo product, you have to clarify: shall 4070 (TI) also be priced as a halo product, next shall 4060 also be priced as a halo product, next shall 4050 also be priced as a halo product? Or starting from RTX 5000 for the 70 tier, then RTX 6000 for the 60 tier? Therefore, do you consider it fair that, eventually, the ordinary product category is dissolved becoming part of the halo product category at more than 2x the price for each product before accounting inflation and currency rate changes? Or are you from Nvidia trying to sell us your greed as fairness?

How about also raising notebook RTX 4000 prices in the 50, 60 and 70 tiers by another €800, like it has been done for 3080 Mobile and above? Would you call that fair and pay whatever Ngreedia demands?

Next, raise all iGPUs to the halo product category so that CPU prices do not start at ca. €50 but at €850? Will you call that fair?

Moores law is dead (so pretends Nividia) and we will pay future prices linear to speed increments? Do not forget to call it fair when one computer will cost a million!

[indy]

I didn't use the term halo product, you did.

I'm going based on pure economics, supply and demand. No other competition gets close. So Nvidia can price to their heart's content, it doesn't even have to scale, as they OWN the top tier currently. Arguing beyond this point is moot. Emotional pleas mean nothing...

They have a fiduciary obligation to return shareholder value, and this is them doing exactly that.

They couldn't sustain these prices if AND/or Intel got say 90% of the performance metrics. They know they own the market, so they can price accordingly. Gaming cards isn't a regulated market like energy.

Halo cards mean Jack. They have an opportunity to make profit, and this is them doing exactly that.

[RobertJasiek]

1) I understand your perspective but 4080 does not sell enough to maintain its price level expecting to maximise profit by itself. Rather, for the purpose of alleged maximal profit, the 4080 price says "buy 4090 or RTX 3000".

2) We will see benchmarks how 4080 compares to 7900 XTX. (There is a theory that Nvidia did not care for AMD but reality is that in rasterisation they might compare in principle. CUDA etc. workload is a different topic: 4090, A series and Hopper are the competitors for it in Nvidia's range of performance monopoly. However, for some work software, AMD cards are actually much faster.)

3) Halo product and range of performance monopoly describe the same from difference perspectives, although see (2).

4) Supply and demand: Nvidia had to cut top tier RTX 3000 prices drastically after the mining boom. 4080 does not sell well so, if Nvidia wants to sell it (rather than 4090 / RTX 3000), it will have to cut its price similar to 3080 TI and 3080 12GB price cuts. Supply of RTX 3080 10GB and above has started to dry up since November; higher cards have become scarce so (in Germany) RTX 3080 10GB prices have gone up again but sales are modest; some people absolutely need a card now but everybody else has been waiting and continues to wait, and quite a few skip RTX 3000 and / or RTX 4000 (partly even beyond) entirely due to the steep prices. Availability of different RTX 3080 10GB models has become somewhat restricted so clearly is drying up. When most RTX 3080 10GB will be sold and AMD's 7000 will be available, profit cannot be allegedly maximised any more by the "buy 4090 or RTX 3000" strategy so then 4080 needs a price cut, a successor with a better price / performance ratio or 4070 (TI) need to be priced more competitively. Mindfactory sells something like 5 or 10 RTX 3080 10GB per day but IMO they would sell 100 times as many 4080 if the price remained the same and the fire hazard was removed. Nvidia's current strategy seems to assume instead that it would only sell 1.5 times as many. It also does not maximise long-term profit from encouraging many more regular buyers. 4080 is a rather good product (except for the fire hazard) but I think that Nvidia misses the opportunity to make much more profit now and long-term despite the RTX 3000 over-supply. RTX 2000 was too expensive, RTX 3000 was mining-exaggerated, 4080 is too expensive again; demand among non-miners must have accumulated so supply with attractive prices should fulfil it also from the profit-maximisation perspective. Nvidia knows it (see top tier RTX 3000 price cuts earlier this year) but plays poker on the timeline, trying consumers to become more impatient than Nvidia.

[hfm]

If nVidia would have priced the 4080 properly for the proper generational price/performance I definitely would have bought one already. It's way overpriced as it's stands. They just basically charged us for every frame of perf increase over the 3080. Their pricing is out of line, hopefully AMD can compete. Card should be $799-849 US max. I'll give them inflation increase of $100-150.

[bahamutikl]

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