RTX 3080 12GB: Asus with a realistic retail price

The revised RTX 3080 with 12 GB graphics memory comes with very high prices around the corner - hopes are fading that the recommended retail prices of the older cards will ever be reached again.

Nvidia and its partners yesterday presented a new variant with the GA102-GPU from the Ampere line-up: Cards based on the RTX 3080 12GB offer a little more of everything, whether RAM, shader cluster, memory bandwidth, or power consumption. The official price, on the other hand, rises disproportionately. RTX 3080 old versus RTX 3080 new

The launch of the RTX 3080 12GB brings with it the curious situation that Nvidia itself does not offer a Founders Edition and therefore there is no Nvidia recommended retail price. It was similar to the RTX 2060 12GB, but the difference is more significant with the 3080 12GB. Theoretically, the Nvidia recommended retail price of the RTX 3080 12 GB would have to be between 820 dollars (3080 10 GB) and 1,300 dollars (3080 Ti). 

Nvidia officially says: "A new version of the GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory is available from our GPU partners as of today, with driver support via GeForce Experience as well as on the Nvidia driver download page is available. Specific prices and additional product information are available from the partners ".

In other words, you leave it to the manufacturers to specify prices, and so they should ultimately keep more of the cake.

In practical terms, Asus says, for example, for the ROG Strix RTX 3080 12GB OC (boost clock: 1,860 or 1,890 MHz) a recommended retail price of $ 1,860 and for the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 12GB OC (boost clock: 1,785 or 1,815 MHz) $ 1,720. If you compare that with the street prices of the RTX 3080 10GB and RTX 3080 Ti, that is quite realistic. The RTX 3080 last fluctuated between 1,600 and 1,800 dollars, the RTX 3080 Ti between 2,100 and 2,300 dollars. MSI does not have any recommended retail price.

Also worth reading: Nvidia announces more GeForce RTX 3000 cards

The full extent of the curiosity is evident in the EVGA shop. The old 3080 cards are offered here for 820 to 850 dollars plus VAT, i.e. between 970 and 1,000 dollars. The 12 GB version costs 1,320 dollars plus VAT ( approx. 1,386 for the XC3 Ultra Gaming ) or 1,207 plus VAT ( approx. 1,630 for the FTW3 Ultra Gaming ).

Does the procedure for the RTX 3080 12GB mean that it would be better to forget the EIAs for the cards from 2020 and 2021? So that the current street prices, which at Nvidia are mostly double the original recommended retail price, also apply for the rest of the year? That is not really clear, but with the release of the RTX 3090 Ti, which is due on January 27th. is to be expected, this question could be clarified. The recommended retail price for the RTX 3090 Non-Ti is still 1,760 dollars (street: from 3,000 dollars). Whether or not Nvidia will announce its own UVP or Founders Edition is still unknown.