Did Nvidia change the pricing of the 3080ti from $999 to $1199 at the last minute?

Well the MSRP is unreasonable for the performance, that is the point. I skipped the Turing generation because the price to performance ratio was getting ridiculous. Thanks to all the people that skipped that generation Nvidia came out with the 3080 at MSRP $699. What will this buying frenzy tell them?
The weird VRAM artifacting issues and the prices still being inflated from the last shortage was why I skipped Turing. I was tempted by the 16 series cards, but I felt like those were not really a better deal than a used Pascal card, and didn't bite. I never expected to regret that decision as much as I have.

But yeah, when I said that price was "reasonable," I meant given that it's a modestly cut-down 3090, a $300 discount on a 3090 with less VRAM doesn't seem terrible if you think a 3090 is worth $1500 in the first place (and of course that's debatable but it's kind of a separate issue). I think branding it as a 3080 Ti was a terrible marketing move, and it should have been in the 3090 family. They did kinda back themselves into a corner by launching the other card first as a 3090 though. If they'd launched this card with 12GB of VRAM as the 3090, the original card could have been launched later as the 3090 Ti, or a new Titan, which would have made more sense than calling this thing a 3080 Ti. I feel like there would have been less blowback if they simply called it a 12GB VRAM version of the 3090, or maybe even a 3085 to avoid putting it in the 3080 family at all.

Basically, people aren't used to paying more than $100 to $200 over the cost of the base card for a Ti edition of anything. The 2080 Ti could only go for $999 because the 2080 was like $799. But because the 3080 was priced at $699, you would logically expect a 3080 Ti, if it's a souped-up 3080 (which the name implies), to be priced at $799 or maybe $899. They were likely already uncomfortable with $999 because that's a $300 premium over the base card, but were willing to tolerate it because that was the cost of the 2080 Ti last generation. Thinking about it now, I suspect people are more angry about the symbolism of a $1000+ card in the 3080 family at all than about the $200 price difference. They were somewhat willing to accept cards like that in the 90 or Titan series, but they expect 80 series cards to be the accessible high end. From a practical standpoint, there's really nothing wrong with a cut-down 3090 costing that much. The problem is that people think of it as a 3080, see a $500 premium for a Ti model when they're used to seeing $200 maximum for that, and cry extortion. That's the definition of bad marketing in my opinion.

However... you are right about the price to performance ratio getting ridiculous. This MSRP thing is mostly academic/symbolic at this point, almost no one is getting cards for these prices anyway. The current price/performance ratio seems to be stuck in 2014, with a 1650 Super costing about as much as a 980 at launch, and performing about the same too, with every step above that costing roughly what you'd expect if the 980 hadn't lost a single dollar of value since launch with every new card after launching in a tier above it. I think it's actually made worse by the fact that a lot of people skipped Pascal and Turing because of the shortage and lingering inflation, putting off their next GPU purchase until they built a new computer. Well, now Kepler is finally EOL and Maxwell is probably on the chopping block next year, so those people are desperate to get upgrades soon so they can keep gaming, and it's unfortunately no longer a matter of lowering settings or anything, but an actual possibility new games won't even run on their old card at all. It's now more of a situation where people who were waiting this out now have to get an unfairly priced card or be locked out of modern games entirely, and that's a new wrinkle in an already bad situation. They were able to keep these prices high long enough that people who were determined not to pay these prices will now have to either pay them or accept that they've been priced out of the market and move on with their lives. Also there's all the fear and uncertainty. People want to buy these cards now because they have no idea if they'll wake up tomorrow and find they cost as much as a car or a house. They've been shaken out of their normalcy bias and now think things can only get worse.

I'm thinking prices may come down a bit, but not enough to make things easier. I'm expecting a world where a 60 series card costs $500, a 70 series costs $1000, and an 80 series costs $1500. With 90 series being more like $2000. And anyone with less than $500 to spend will just be told to try and buy a used 60 series card on the second-hand market or settle for integrated graphics. Sadly, that is what I'm expecting to see as the new normal.
 
I'm still flabbergasted that Nvidia basically gave up selling FE cards and pawned it off to Best Buy of all places.
 
I'm still flabbergasted that Nvidia basically gave up selling FE cards and pawned it off to Best Buy of all places.

Nvidia has a very basic shopping site, probably an off-the-shelf type thing they bought and modified just enough to work for them. Every single card was getting bought by bots. I'm sure if they dedicated resources from other departments they could stop it, but it's really not their expertise or focus and definitely not more profitable than those people working on other things.
 
Nvidia has a very basic shopping site, probably an off-the-shelf type thing they bought and modified just enough to work for them. Every single card was getting bought by bots. I'm sure if they dedicated resources from other departments they could stop it, but it's really not their expertise or focus and definitely not more profitable than those people working on other things.
Fair enough. I still don't like it. :p
 
Here is the way I look at it. Anyone running a GTX 3080 that sucks 320W probably has an 850W power supply in their computer. That's not exactly a low-end system, but if someone wants to have an overclocked 3090 or a 3080 Ti in their system... well, now you're probably looking at a 1000W power supply and a monster cooling solution, probably water cooling. I don't feel particularly sorry for anyone that has a 1000W power supply in their high-end system they're planning to watercool complaining about having to spend $200 more on a GPU that can use it, as if they're being morally wronged somehow by not being given price parity with AMD's $999 offering. Well, sure, maybe the pricing doesn't make sense and isn't competitive, but it's far from being unfair or worth getting outraged about.

Wow, you're very quick to hand over everyone else's money to Nvidia. Ironically, you've co-opted some sort of "eat the rich" sentiment with regard to your fellow PC enthusiasts (based on PSU wattage, of all things), but you're okay with the big multinational corporation gouging everyone for massive profits. Bravo.
 
For those that don't water cool, $200 will get you a full coverage water block.
 
Wow, you're very quick to hand over everyone else's money to Nvidia. Ironically, you've co-opted some sort of "eat the rich" sentiment with regard to your fellow PC enthusiasts (based on PSU wattage, of all things), but you're okay with the big multinational corporation gouging everyone for massive profits. Bravo.
Umm... no, I'm not saying wealthy PC gamers should be taxed and have their wealth redistributed to nVidia involuntarily. Not sure where you got that from. You realize we're talking about something people purchase voluntarily, right? Even within the context of PC gaming, no one NEEDS a 3080 Ti or a 3090 to get good performance. I'm also not saying wealthy PC gamers should be forced to buy 3090 cards or 3080 Ti cards. If they think the $1000+ cards are a bad deal, they're as free to buy a 3070 or a 3060 as everyone else is and save more of their money.

I was thinking more along the lines of $1200 for a 3080 Ti from a store being a better deal than $1250 for a 3060 Ti from a middleman, or $1500 for a 3070 from a middleman. It's more a matter of if there's a shortage, yeah, I'd rather nVidia and the AIB partners get the money than the distributors. If the actual companies are getting the prices, they can use that for R&D, they can hire and retain better talent, they can improve manufacturing yields, etc. If they charged $899 or $999 for these cards, they would sell out even faster and be the prices would be over $2000 on the second-hand market anyway. I don't get why people want them to keep MSRP artificially low to ensure more cards wind up on the second-hand market and the money keeps flowing into the pockets of distributors. That just seems like blind contempt for big corporations rather than logic. Should the prices stay high after the shortage ends? No, of course not, and that's when it arguably becomes a matter of greed or unfairness (though really I think they'd have to cut prices at some point just to keep selling them).

You have to put my statement in context... I'm saying it's ridiculous to quibble over $200 being added to the MSRP of a 3080 Ti in a market where 3070s are going for $1500. Also, given what the card is on a hardware level, I'm looking at it as a $300 discount on a 3090, rather than a $500 premium over a 3080, because it's not a souped-up 3080 like the name implies.

I'm not saying everyone should jump on that deal, I just find it ridiculous that people who were happy with $999 are so incredulous that a little extra was added to the price. It's more a matter of, well, if you aren't happy with that price, no one is forcing you to buy it, and given market conditions anyway, it seems pretty dramatic to me for someone to act like an MSRP increase of $200 is going to bankrupt them and ruin their life to line the pockets of nVidia. Besides, the 3070 Ti is going to be $100 less than a 3080 and almost the same performance, so it's not like all the cards being launched are insanely overpriced. I'm trying to say that people are making too much out of this, not that they should pay up and be happy about it.
 
Last edited:
Remember the when you could buy card 5-10% under MSRP within a couple months of release, instead of paying 50+% over MSRP months later?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.

The MSRP seems OK to me, but it really is meaningless. Unless you have your own bots up and running, you are not likely going to be able to buy at MSRP. I consider the 3xxx and 6xxx series cards to be paper launches. Yes they sort of exist, but do they really? If I can't buy one direct from the mfg or Amazon, or Newegg, and have to resort to some shady scalpers, they don't to me. They can't even supply their current cards yet, they may as well not even launch this.
Paper launches? Nvidia claims they have sold more ampere cards than either pascal or turing generations.

They have said it isn’t a supply problem, it is a demand problem, in that demand is higher than ever before, and unpredicted.
 
Last minute pricing adjustments are nothing new. In this market, this being a "last minute" decision seems unlikely.

Pricing reflects the free market. Jensen's ass would be canned if they put out 3080Ti's for $799. Even $999 would have been stupid on their part, 1 reason alone is the 6900XT being msrp at $999. If the market can consume $1400 to $2100 6900XT's, then $1199 pricing is a gift.

Tech Jesus has spoken...so be it.




Go home Nvidia....You're drunk!

Tech jesus is good at tech, but flunked economics. Either that, or he is just playing up to his audience.
 
They have said it isn’t a supply problem, it is a demand problem, in that demand is higher than ever before, and unpredicted.

It's not that our crane is to weak. I'ts just that the stone is to heavy for it.
Fanboy logic...
 
Paper launches? Nvidia claims they have sold more ampere cards than either pascal or turing generations.

They have said it isn’t a supply problem, it is a demand problem, in that demand is higher than ever before, and unpredicted.
If I can't buy one, it may as well be a paper launch regardless of how many NV says they have made/sold.
 
If I can't buy one, it may as well be a paper launch regardless of how many NV says they have made/sold.
Except no.

It wasn’t a paper launch when they’ve sold a tremendous number of cards. It just means you aren’t a part of the sales channels used. Apparently Crypto miners have been buying them directly (there was a story out in Nov, 2020 that 175 million USD in ampere cards were bought straight from Nvidia without making it to the retail channels for example and you can assume that has continued.)

The cards are being made, and sold the companies booming financials indicate that, they just have not been making it to traditional retail channels in historic numbers.
 
Last edited:
Supply meet demand. Yes, it was a last minute change. And yes it was reasonable given current demand for GPUs. Not seeing them collecting dust on shelves because of a $200 markup are we.
 
Except no.

It wasn’t a paper launch when they’ve sold a tremendous number of cards. It just means you aren’t a part of the sales channels used. Apparently Crypto miners have been buying them directly and the cards have not been making it to traditional retail channels in historic numbers.
So, a paper launch as far as gamers are concerned. You can fiddle with words all you want. Say "no" all you want. If gamers don't have them, can't get them for anything resembling msrp, then benches don't matter, and it may as well be a paper launch.
It is all just on paper until I can buy one.
 
So, a paper launch as far as gamers are concerned. You can fiddle with words all you want. Say "no" all you want. If gamers don't have them, can't get them for anything resembling msrp, then benches don't matter, and it may as well be a paper launch.
It is all just on paper until I can buy one.
1623773386106.png
 
The weird VRAM artifacting issues and the prices still being inflated from the last shortage was why I skipped Turing. I was tempted by the 16 series cards, but I felt like those were not really a better deal than a used Pascal card, and didn't bite. I never expected to regret that decision as much as I have.

But yeah, when I said that price was "reasonable," I meant given that it's a modestly cut-down 3090, a $300 discount on a 3090 with less VRAM doesn't seem terrible if you think a 3090 is worth $1500 in the first place (and of course that's debatable but it's kind of a separate issue). I think branding it as a 3080 Ti was a terrible marketing move, and it should have been in the 3090 family. They did kinda back themselves into a corner by launching the other card first as a 3090 though. If they'd launched this card with 12GB of VRAM as the 3090, the original card could have been launched later as the 3090 Ti, or a new Titan, which would have made more sense than calling this thing a 3080 Ti. I feel like there would have been less blowback if they simply called it a 12GB VRAM version of the 3090, or maybe even a 3085 to avoid putting it in the 3080 family at all.

Basically, people aren't used to paying more than $100 to $200 over the cost of the base card for a Ti edition of anything. The 2080 Ti could only go for $999 because the 2080 was like $799. But because the 3080 was priced at $699, you would logically expect a 3080 Ti, if it's a souped-up 3080 (which the name implies), to be priced at $799 or maybe $899. They were likely already uncomfortable with $999 because that's a $300 premium over the base card, but were willing to tolerate it because that was the cost of the 2080 Ti last generation. Thinking about it now, I suspect people are more angry about the symbolism of a $1000+ card in the 3080 family at all than about the $200 price difference. They were somewhat willing to accept cards like that in the 90 or Titan series, but they expect 80 series cards to be the accessible high end. From a practical standpoint, there's really nothing wrong with a cut-down 3090 costing that much. The problem is that people think of it as a 3080, see a $500 premium for a Ti model when they're used to seeing $200 maximum for that, and cry extortion. That's the definition of bad marketing in my opinion.

However... you are right about the price to performance ratio getting ridiculous. This MSRP thing is mostly academic/symbolic at this point, almost no one is getting cards for these prices anyway. The current price/performance ratio seems to be stuck in 2014, with a 1650 Super costing about as much as a 980 at launch, and performing about the same too, with every step above that costing roughly what you'd expect if the 980 hadn't lost a single dollar of value since launch with every new card after launching in a tier above it. I think it's actually made worse by the fact that a lot of people skipped Pascal and Turing because of the shortage and lingering inflation, putting off their next GPU purchase until they built a new computer. Well, now Kepler is finally EOL and Maxwell is probably on the chopping block next year, so those people are desperate to get upgrades soon so they can keep gaming, and it's unfortunately no longer a matter of lowering settings or anything, but an actual possibility new games won't even run on their old card at all. It's now more of a situation where people who were waiting this out now have to get an unfairly priced card or be locked out of modern games entirely, and that's a new wrinkle in an already bad situation. They were able to keep these prices high long enough that people who were determined not to pay these prices will now have to either pay them or accept that they've been priced out of the market and move on with their lives. Also there's all the fear and uncertainty. People want to buy these cards now because they have no idea if they'll wake up tomorrow and find they cost as much as a car or a house. They've been shaken out of their normalcy bias and now think things can only get worse.

I'm thinking prices may come down a bit, but not enough to make things easier. I'm expecting a world where a 60 series card costs $500, a 70 series costs $1000, and an 80 series costs $1500. With 90 series being more like $2000. And anyone with less than $500 to spend will just be told to try and buy a used 60 series card on the second-hand market or settle for integrated graphics. Sadly, that is what I'm expecting to see as the new normal.
The 3090 should have been an A series card, or they should never have killed the Quadro name. The 3090 is their Workstation card that whole gaming branding on it was a mess they did last minute to counter the 6900xt which AMD only ended up building a few thousand of but they couldn’t let AMD have the technical flagship. Even on paper only.
 
Umm... no, I'm not saying wealthy PC gamers should be taxed and have their wealth redistributed to nVidia involuntarily. Not sure where you got that from. You realize we're talking about something people purchase voluntarily, right? Even within the context of PC gaming, no one NEEDS a 3080 Ti or a 3090 to get good performance. I'm also not saying wealthy PC gamers should be forced to buy 3090 cards or 3080 Ti cards. If they think the $1000+ cards are a bad deal, they're as free to buy a 3070 or a 3060 as everyone else is and save more of their money.

I was thinking more along the lines of $1200 for a 3080 Ti from a store being a better deal than $1250 for a 3060 Ti from a middleman, or $1500 for a 3070 from a middleman. It's more a matter of if there's a shortage, yeah, I'd rather nVidia and the AIB partners get the money than the distributors. If the actual companies are getting the prices, they can use that for R&D, they can hire and retain better talent, they can improve manufacturing yields, etc. If they charged $899 or $999 for these cards, they would sell out even faster and be the prices would be over $2000 on the second-hand market anyway. I don't get why people want them to keep MSRP artificially low to ensure more cards wind up on the second-hand market and the money keeps flowing into the pockets of distributors. That just seems like blind contempt for big corporations rather than logic. Should the prices stay high after the shortage ends? No, of course not, and that's when it arguably becomes a matter of greed or unfairness (though really I think they'd have to cut prices at some point just to keep selling them).

You have to put my statement in context... I'm saying it's ridiculous to quibble over $200 being added to the MSRP of a 3080 Ti in a market where 3070s are going for $1500. Also, given what the card is on a hardware level, I'm looking at it as a $300 discount on a 3090, rather than a $500 premium over a 3080, because it's not a souped-up 3080 like the name implies.

I'm not saying everyone should jump on that deal, I just find it ridiculous that people who were happy with $999 are so incredulous that a little extra was added to the price. It's more a matter of, well, if you aren't happy with that price, no one is forcing you to buy it, and given market conditions anyway, it seems pretty dramatic to me for someone to act like an MSRP increase of $200 is going to bankrupt them and ruin their life to line the pockets of nVidia. Besides, the 3070 Ti is going to be $100 less than a 3080 and almost the same performance, so it's not like all the cards being launched are insanely overpriced. I'm trying to say that people are making too much out of this, not that they should pay up and be happy about it.
Well then, if you like pickup trucks and are willing to buy a really nice F150 3.5 liter Lariat that should cost $50,000 and you can afford $50,000, then you shouldn't be upset when Ford decides that the price will be $60,000. I mean, it's only 20% more and you don't really need the Lariat to do real truck things like hauling dirt or pulling a trailer. The XL with the 2.7 liter will be just fine for your needs. If you are a real truck enthusiast and everyone was expecting a $50,000 price tag, then you shouldn't quibble over that extra $10,000.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aix.
like this
Back
Top