Nvidia's RTX 4090 dips below MSRP in Europe as GPU prices continue to fall
Still not cheap, but going in the right direction.
Nvidia's monstrous RTX 4090 has dipped below Nvidia's recommended pricing in several European markets. That includes pricing on Nvidia's official online store.
In the UK, you can now grab an RTX 4090 for £1,579 from Nvidia's official store, down from the £1,649 at which it originally listed. But probably the biggest drop has been in Germany.
Back at launch, the RTX 4090 commanded €1,949. Now? It's yours for €1,769. OK, that's not exactly pocket change. But the simple fact that Nvidia's range-topping graphics card can now be bought from its own online store for materially less than launch late last year is significant.
Lest we've all forgotten, it took about two years from launch for the RTX 3090 to be widely available at MSRP, let alone dip below it.
The RTX 4090 is also something of a bellwether in that it's, arguably, the only member of Nvidia's latest RTX 40 family that represents a step forward in value for money compared to the previous generation.
The RTX 3090 launched at $1,499 in late 2020, with the RTX 3090 arriving at $1,599 in late 2022. That $100 increase doesn't even keep up with inflation, but the 4090 is massively more powerful than the RTX 3090.
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
Compare that with with RTX 3080 and RTX 4080 that replaced it. The RTX 3080 was a $699 GPU, in theory at least. But the RTX 4080 upped that to a painful $1,199, all the while not delivering the same performance jump, proportionally, as the RTX 4090 did over the RTX 3090.
Speaking of the RTX 4080, it too can be had for a whisker under MSRP from several official European Nvidia stores. It's still miles off what we would regard as a decent deal on the 4080, however.
For the record, neither the RTX 4080 nor the 4090 are listed below MSRP on Nvidia's USA store. So, these sub-MSRP listings are not yet universal. But they're also widespread enough to defy explanation as edge cases or temporary blips. And the US pricing for these cards started at a better place than most of Europe.
Instead, they're another positive data point in the downward trend of GPU prices. As we mentioned the other day, we're not there yet, but it's all heading in the right direction.