The Nvidia RTX 4090 launched final October with a instructed beginning worth of $1,599. Since that point, we nonetheless have not seen any playing cards available with out paying a considerable premium — most fashions listed at retailers begin at over two grand. It is one of many greatest graphics playing cards round and unequivocally the quickest by any significant metric if you happen to have a look at our GPU benchmarks, however paying over 25% further on an already extremely costly GPU is a tricky capsule to swallow.
There’s excellent news, nevertheless, in that Newegg has the Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC in inventory, for simply $1,709. Okay, “simply,” however beggars cannot be choosers. We have reviewed the Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC, and located it to be a succesful tackle the GPU. It is just about a reference card made by a 3rd celebration AIB, and do not pay any consideration to the “Gaming OC” a part of the title. The manufacturing unit overclock consists of an additional 15 MHz over the reference increase clock, which at 2520 MHz means you get a possible 0.6% improve in theoretical efficiency!
However if you happen to’re available in the market for an RTX 4090, the prospect of spending 20% extra simply to get a further 2% from a barely larger manufacturing unit overclock is a foul commerce. In truth, with handbook overclocking, the Gigabyte card trades blows with different fashions, and also you’re mainly topic to the silicon lottery as a lot as something — plus whether or not or not the producer used quicker reminiscence chips.
Costs on graphics playing cards stay inflated, however maybe it is a signal that issues are beginning to change. The RTX 4090 could reign because the king of the mountain and may maybe command a better worth, however the RTX 4080 begins at $1,229 (opens in new tab) and is as much as 25% slower, whereas the RTX 4070 Ti begins at $799 (opens in new tab), its official base MSRP. AMD’s new RX 7900 XTX begins at $1,299 (opens in new tab), whereas the step down can drop 15–20 % in efficiency however the RX 7900 XT begins at $879 (opens in new tab) — $20 below the official MSRP.
Give it one other month or three and perhaps the entire newest technology playing cards will fall under their inflated launch MSRPs. If you cannot wait that lengthy, or do not wan to danger having costs stay excessive, Gigabyte’s card makes for a wonderful skilled and excessive gaming GPU.
Should you’re not seeking to drop greater than a typical high-end gaming PC on simply the graphics card, we will solely hope that extra affordable choices turn out to be obtainable quickly. With the RTX 4070 Ti drawing quite a lot of criticism, perhaps we’ll see RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti begin to push down into the $500 vary. Or if not Nvidia, perhaps AMD will launch an RX 7800 XT or 7700 XT. We do not have a agency launch date for these but, nevertheless it’s a protected wager all of these are coming and will arrive inside the subsequent couple of months.