Nvidia's RTX 4090 (opens in new tab) went on sale yesterday. It sold out 10 minutes later. Shortly after, the RTX 4090 ended up on eBay. Standard stuff. Though what's really surprising is that these graphics cards on eBay aren't as terrible in terms of price as you might expect. Okay, they're not cheap by any means, not at all. Good business, but things could absolutely be worse. In fact, they've been worse for a long time.
These less inflated prices may actually indicate that supply is better for GPUs and demand is less frenetic than at any other time in the last 18 months. One of the few reasons why you shouldn't take anyone on an RTX 4090 with an inflated price tag.
Over the past two years, resellers have made money by selling in-demand graphics cards for far more than their suggested retail price. An RTX 3080 would fetch more than 220% compared to its original suggested price (opens in new tab) from US$699 in the months after its release and an RTX 3090 around US$180 or more.
Although these MSRPs don't mean much for most of the life of these graphics cards anyway.
But today the RTX 4090 is listed at 'only' 30% over its suggested price, at around US$ 2,100. That's the cheapest I've found so far. eBay (opens in new tab). Although, we admit, you might find the Founders Editions worth a bit more – the Nvidia cover design is our favorite, and it seems to be the most sought after, too.
I'm not saying you should rush out and buy a graphics card from an eBay reseller—you shouldn't overpay for an already extremely expensive card, or make GPU resale a worthwhile venture for those who choose to rush on launch day. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Demand for the RTX 4090 is high right now, and that's to be expected. Even before the major GPU shortages in previous years, stock never lasted until launch day. This is quite normal. What we can only hope for now is quick restocks. What we've heard from UK retailers we've spoken to is that supply should be stable for the RTX 4090 going forward. We've also heard of at least one restock on the way to a UK retailer today, October 13th.
However, I'm not going to pretend that everything is rosy now. A post in Reddit (opens in new tab) suggests that a customer who snagged an RTX 4090 on launch day at Box was later disappointed to learn that their order had been canceled due to insufficient stock. Box also claims it has no visibility into other shipments of RTX 4090s.
We reached out to Box to confirm this situation, and a spokesperson responded by saying they're seeking clarification from product managers. They also mentioned that this may have been due to sales overflowing the system and overselling before the automatic out-of-stock notification could be activated.
However, it's a frustrating situation for those affected, especially since we expected more robust sales systems after the previous 18 months of high GPU demand.
When asked about the launch, a Newegg spokesperson said, "The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card launch went well for Newegg. Demand for the 4090 was extremely strong. Newegg sold out of our first batch of inventory quickly."
“Our expectations have been exceeded and it’s clear that customers are excited about the 4090 Series and the 40 Series in general.”
The supply situation isn't entirely clear, so we're certainly hearing mixed messages. The important thing to remember is that the actual supply for GPUs isn't as constrained on a larger scale as it once was. And the biggest drain on GPU supply for cryptocurrency mining, Ethereum, no longer requires GPUs. (opens in new tab)We can only hope that restocks will be more readily available in the coming weeks and months, as some retailers seem to suggest.
