Nvidia’s RTX 4080 graphics card has been spotted priced up in Europe and the UK ahead of its big launch on November 16, but sadly these are even more worrying price tags for would-be buyers than those we’ve already witnessed in the US.
If you recall, US pricing – for third-party models of the RTX 4080, meaning custom boards made by Nvidia’s manufacturing partners – appeared at the tail-end of last week, and didn’t make for pretty viewing on the whole. Granted, there were some 4080 GPUs which held to Nvidia’s recommended pricing – which was very much a relief to see – but higher-end models have been pushing quite a ridiculous premium.
If you were hoping the situation in Europe might be better, then think again based on the early glimpses we’ve now seen.
In the UK, retailer Box has various Asus RTX 4080 models starting from a rather eye-watering £1,399 (TUF Gaming (opens in new tab)), with entry-level Palit RTX 4080s (opens in new tab) also pitched at that level (two GameRock (opens in new tab) variants).
The TUF Gaming OC Edition (opens in new tab) from Asus creeps up to £1,571, and if you want the top-of-the-line ROG Strix RTX 4080 (opens in new tab), that’ll set you back £1,649. Yes, ouch.
As Tom’s Hardware (opens in new tab) points out, the situation elsewhere in Europe also looks pretty dire. The Asus TUF RTX 4080 is a towering €1,430 in France (InfoMax) – which is close to $1,500 in US dollars – and 11.299,00 kr in Denmark (Proshop), which is even more (around $1,560).
Analysis: Pricing misery compounded
Remember that the mentioned Asus TUF RTX 4080 is one of the graphics cards which happens to be at MSRP in the US (at Micro Center at least), so it’s pretty disappointing to see it cranked up considerably in the UK and Europe.
Now, these early prices don’t represent the whole landscape of RTX 4080 pricing, of course; so we can’t get carried away. Big retailers like Scan, Overclockers and so forth in the UK don’t have any RTX 4080 models priced at all yet, though the product listings are on the site.
That said, we don’t take that as a great sign, either – and more of an indication that stock might be wobbly upon launch. That’d be a sadly familiar situation, and one which could lead to price inflation anyway, as scalpers look to pick up inventory and maybe sell it on at even more of a profit.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, naturally, but the whole RTX 4080 launch is starting to fill us with trepidation. And certainly, it’s difficult to be optimistic particularly for the UK market when you still can’t get an RTX 4090 for any less than £1,800 right now (opens in new tab).
Pricing will eventually settle down more, although some gamers may be looking to wait for more affordable Nvidia graphics cards to emerge – like the RTX 4070 Ti (even if affordable will be a relative term here, this GPU could certainly look like something of a bargain compared to the above outlined prices). Similarly, there are options from AMD coming in the form of RDNA 3 GPUs, but again just higher-end models, with the RX 7900 XTX aiming to go toe-to-toe with the RTX 4080.