December 13, 2022 will see the release of AMD’s new Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XTX graphics cards, eagerly awaited for several reasons: they are cheaper and more energy-intensive than Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, but will rub to their outstanding performance. We don’t worry too much about Nvidia about its leadership with the RTX 4090, but the RTX 4080 could be somewhat hampered by the Radeons, although the latest leaks announce them a little behind, especially at the level of the raytracing.
When in doubt, and faced with AMD’s aggressive pricing, Nvidia has decided to lower the price for its RTX 4080. According to information from the Chinese site MyDriversthis decision aims above all to improve the performance / price ratio of the GPU.
A powerful GPU, but too expensive
The choice makes sense given the poor sales of the RTX 4080. It seems gamers aren’t willing to shell out $1,500 for a graphics card — should we be surprised? — and some signs are unmistakable. The RTX 4080 is still in stock at many retailers and the scalpers who thought they could make money by reselling the GPU at exorbitant prices often have to reduce their claims to get closer to the MSRP (recommended retail price) on eBay and Leboncoin.
This good news follows a first (slight) price drop two days ago, aimed at balancing the euro/dollar exchange rate and taking the RTX 4080 from €1469 to €1399, while the RTX 4090 s displayed at 1859 € instead of 1949 €. It remains to be seen how much this new price drop will be and whether it applies to all global regions. We are also awaiting the results of our tests of the Radeon RX 7900s to find out if they constitute a serious alternative to Nvidia GPUs.
More than a short week to wait to know everything about their consumption and their performance.