NVIDIA RTX 4090 Supply Decreases, Prices Soar

As October arrives, the PC components market enters its promotional period. However, the price of NVIDIA's RTX 4090 graphics card has not followed this trend, instead seeing a sharp increase. In July, the RTX 4090 was priced around $1,599, but now $1,799 is the lowest price available on the market, with many models priced even higher and facing stock shortages.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 has performed well and remains the fastest graphics card available, but it is approaching the end of its life and preparing to be retired. Many might be surprised to find that the RTX 4090 is now more expensive than it was two years ago when it first launched.

Recently, retailers in Germany have reported a decreasing supply of the RTX 4090, a trend that has now spread globally. This has had a ripple effect on the pricing of the RTX 4090 and the upcoming RTX 4080 Super, though both logic and market dynamics suggest this is the most expected trend. In fact, this has been a common occurrence with nearly every generation of graphics cards.

When NVIDIA first launched the RTX 2080 Ti, it was priced at $1,199. As the RTX 2080 Ti neared the end of its life, its supply had nearly dried up, yet prices remained high until the very last moment. Two years later, the RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3090, and RTX 3080 GPUs followed nearly the same pattern, maintaining high prices until the end of their product life cycles.

All signs point to NVIDIA launching the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 in January 2025. NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to deliver the keynote address at CES 2025, where the Blackwell RTX 50 series will likely be introduced, bringing new AI functionalities. Fueled by the AI boom, NVIDIA's market valuation is now approximately $3.25 trillion, nearly triple what it was at the start of 2024, and about nine times what it was at the start of 2023.

Additionally, there are numerous signs that, despite their positioning as gaming GPUs, a significant number of RTX 4090 cards, and even lower-tier Ada Lovelace RTX 40 series GPUs, are being used for AI applications.

As a result, for better or worse, GPU prices are unlikely to come down, especially for NVIDIA’s flagship products.

Analysts predict that the prices of the NVIDIA RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 could see a significant increase, with launch prices potentially reaching $2,499 and $1,299, respectively.