Nvidia has confirmed it is cutting prices on its most expensive RTX 30-series graphics cards. I mean, considering we saw so many great deals on Prime Day graphics cards it's kinda funny timing for it to be announced today. I guess Nvidia is just keen to keep the good times rolling with summer sales for everyone.
Or rather is keen to help its graphics card partners shift stock by providing promotional pricing to them ahead of the expected launch of the RTX 40-series cards later on this year. Potentially in a handful of months, in fact.
It's no surprise that Nvidia has chosen the RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3090, RTX 3080 Ti, and RTX 3080 12GB as the cards to get this sort of discount support in the channel. These are the GPUs which are going to be replaced at the dawn of the new Lovelace era of GeForce graphics cards, and if the rumours are to be believed could look rather pedestrian against the new AD10X GPUs.
But it does also suggest that Nvidia is keen to ensure stock is sold through before it gets near launching the new cards, so we may still have a while to wait. We don't know just low limited this limited time promotion is, but I would be surprised if it wasn't up until the next-gen launch.
"For a limited time, we are including a 4 game bundle along with promotional pricing for GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards and up," reads Nvidia's official response to us. "After a long period of supply shortages we are taking action with our partners to deliver a limited time promotion for enthusiast gamers and serious creators."
We had originally seen stories that Nvidia was slashing the MSRP on its most over-priced of GPUs, and we have had separate confirmation from channel insiders that the prices are dropping by up to $500 at the top end of the market.
Nvidia has been keen to point out that it is not changing the launch MSRPs, however, and that this is purely a limited time promotion.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Launch MSRP | Price promotion |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 3090 Ti | $1,999 | $1,499 |
| RTX 3090 | $1,499 | $1,299 |
| RTX 3080 Ti | $1,199 | $1,099 |
| RTX 3080 12GB | N/A | $799 |
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest
These are the US prices, but it seems to be a global promotion, and in the UK you can simply exchange the dollars for pounds directly, because that's the world we live in now.
Honestly, I'm still not sure I'd recommend you go out and buy an RTX 3090 Ti, or really any of the high-end cards from Nvidia or AMD at the moment. Before you consider it you need to think about how you'll feel at the launch of a new card that's maybe the same price but considerably faster.
Though probably as hard as any GPU of the last few years to get hold of...
I wish Nvidia had pushed this price promotion down to the mid-range and mainstream of its graphics card stack; those are the cards we'd more readily recommend you pick up today as they're unlikely to be superseded until well into the new year.
But then that's also why it hasn't.
