Even at MSRP, newly listed RTX 4080 16GB cards are leaving some Nvidia fans cold

The first Nvidia RTX 4080 16GB graphics card has been listed over on retailer Newegg, ahead of the card's launch on November 16. 

The card, PNY's XLR8 Gaming Verto, is priced at $1,199.99. That's only 99 cents over the MSRP announced by Nvidia. Another model is listed on the site, the PNY XLR8 Verto OC, but no price is listed next to this one. It will likely cost more as an overclocked card, however.

The RTX 4080 16GB is built using the same Ada Lovelace architecture as the recently launched RTX 4090, but with a completely different GPU. It's no cut-down version of the top chip, and comes with 9,728 CUDA cores, 16GB of GDDR6X memory, and a TDP of 320W. 

That's a far bigger difference in terms of core spec between the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 when compared with the GPU spec of the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080. We're talking about a delta of 20% between the core count of the two Ampere GPUs and 68% between the new Ada Lovelace cards.

It might impress with its performance, though whether you'll want to spend quite so much on this card or dive deeper into your pockets for an RTX 4090, we'll have to find out when we get our hands on one to test.

We're expecting many more cards to appear from Nvidia's partners ahead of the RTX 4080 16GB launch, and we're hoping most of them stick to the MSRP. That said, I'm sure some high-end cards will creep up to the RTX 4090 sticker price of $1,599. Some high-end RTX 4090 GPUs were listed for $2,000.

We can expect to see European prices for the RTX 4080 16GB that are even dearer than US pricing on launch day. Preliminary listings over at LaptopsDirect, spotted by Videocardz, suggest prices could reach up to £1,490 (originally reported as £1,590 but the listing has now changed). These aren't necessarily the prices we'll see on launch day, however, as early listings can be, and often are, misrepresentative of the actual sale price.

Scrolling through the Reddit thread on the Newegg listing, in the Nvidia subreddit, many users are voicing concern over the card's price.

"The 4090 at this point makes sense price wise. The 4080 does not," user lilogsd says.

One of the top comments, from user Zintoatree, reads: "Isn't this supposed to be a good bit slower than the 4090? If so, they're just trying to upsale you to the 4090."

The Reddit thread for the LaptopsDirect listing is similarly filled with concerns from European gamers regarding the price, which isn't helped by how strong the dollar is in comparison to many currencies worldwide.

If any four-figure price tag is too dear for you, and I don't blame you for being fiscally sensible, you will have to wait a little longer for cheaper next-gen cards. Nvidia cancelled the RTX 4080 12GB, which was intended to launch in November for $899, as the two RTX 4080 models were admitted to be confusing. That then leaves the RTX 4080 as the cheaper option of the two RTX 40-series cards announced, and not by a whole lot.

Whether we'll still see a card at that $899 price in the future, we cannot say for sure; Nvidia has not yet confirmed any further RTX 40-series graphics cards for launch anytime soon.

AMD will have some new cards to announce soon, however. This week the company intends to host a livestream dedicated to its RDNA 3 graphics cards, likely starting with the enthusiast-grade GPU likely pictured in these leaked images.