What price would I actually pay for an RTX 4080? Tough question. I know what price I wouldn't pay and that's $1,199, or rather the card's MSRP. It's not that the RTX 4080 is a bad card. It isn't; I've been testing Alan Wake 2 on an RTX 4080 for a couple weeks and have absolutely no complaints with how that game performs. It's more than there's not a big enough leap in performance to justify spending the extra cash. I'd rather save the money and buy an RTX 4070 Ti instead.
Here's how I see the high-end Nvidia market right now, and why the RTX 4080 just isn't a deal I feel worth taking up today.
You can pick up an RTX 4080 for around $1,130. Specifically a Zotac model we've seen drop below $1,000 once before during Amazon's Fall Prime Day event. There's one other MSI Ventus RTX 4080 going for $1,155, but most other cards I'm finding are demanding above this card's $1,199 MSRP.
Then you've got the RTX 4070 Ti at $782 over on Newegg, just a touch below this card's $799 MSRP. Again, some cards ask for more, and there's another Zotac at $792, but we'll take the cheapest for comparison.
That's a $1,130 RTX 4080 versus a $782 RTX 4070 Ti. You'd be paying 44.5% more for the privilege of an RTX 4080 going by these prices.
So, let's take a look at performance between these two cards from our own testing.
In 3DMark Time Spy, the RTX 4080 reaches a massive 14,067 GPU index score. The RTX 4070 Ti reaches 10,973. The RTX 4080 is 28.1% faster than the RTX 4070 Ti, in this one benchmark. In gaming tests, we see the RTX 4080 pull away by around 26% on average at 4K, though only 16% and 13% at 1440p and 1080p, respectively.
Since both of these cards are aimed at 4K gaming, let's say that 3DMark score is pretty much on the… mark.
Overall, then, we're looking at paying 44% more for an RTX 4080 for a 28% performance boost. You also get more memory at 16GB to 12GB, which may be worth more to you if you're using this card for much more than gaming, but generally this is the sort of deal we're looking at when considering an RTX 4080 today and it's not all that convincing.
To reach what I would consider to be a fair price for an RTX 4080, we need to get that performance average in line with that price average. To do that, we need to see an RTX 4080 drop to $1,000 in the Black Friday graphics card sales, almost to the dollar.
That's certainly possible, and here's why.
We've seen an RTX 4080 go on sale for below $1,000 before. It was only available at that price very briefly during Amazon's Fall Prime Day, and exclusively for Prime members. We've not seen it at that price since, either, but the Zotac RTX 4080 Trinity OC is the one to watch for price drops during Black Friday.
The RTX 4080 to keep an eye on:
Best Black Friday PC gaming deals: All the best discounts in one place
How to avoid overpaying on a Black Friday gaming laptop deal: How much to pay, and where to buy from
How to spot the best Black Friday prebuilt deal: Don't pay over the odds for a PC this year
The other reason why is that Nvidia is rumoured to be getting ready to launch a brand new lineup of Super cards next year. If you don't need a new graphics card by the end of the year, you may actually want to wait and see what happens then before hitting the checkout, as they could impact current generation prices significantly or you might just get a much better deal for your money. Though, we don't know to what extent yet as there is still no official word on the matter.
But what this could mean is that current generation RTX 4080 cards are reaching the end of their time in the limelight, soon to be replaced by an RTX 4080 Super. If that's true, and manufacturers would likely be fully aware of this by now, we may see moves to try and shift these original RTX 4080 cards to free up space and shift GPUs before they become less desirable.
Rumour has it Nvidia has also announced a "discontinuation" of RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti cards, which could see both start to disappear ahead of the new versions. Though it's not clear if this is a permanent discontinuation or something more temporary due to channel demand. Either way, it would suggest card manufacturers have already had their fill of RTX 4080s for the time being and likely want to shift what they have remaining.
There are no guarantees we'll see an RTX 4080 under $1,000 this Black Friday, but I'm going to hold out for that sort of deal. If one doesn't show up, it's probably better to wait a little longer to see what these Super cards are all about instead.
