1 week Ago By Darren Allan
NVIDIA's RTX 4090 graphics card is running low on stock, and prices are rising quite rapidly, at least over in a couple of European countries - but this may well soon happen in the US, as we heard in a previous prediction. 3D Center (via VideoCardz) spotted that in Germany and Austria the RTX 4090 is selling out and some big retailers just have the one product left which is being sold at a predictably inflated price. All this is happening following very recent rumors that NVIDIA is about to pull the plug on RTX 4090 production (and the RTX 4090D for that matter, the variant for the Chinese market).
VideoCardz recaps recent pricing for the RTX 4090 in Germany which had dropped from the MSRP of €1949 down to €1769 at one point, with many retailers now asking more in the region of €2300 to closing on €2700. Only one large German retailer now has the RTX 4090 at its recommended price. In the worst-case pricing scenario for the current market presented here, pitted against the best price we've previously seen, that's a 50% increase, no less.
So, that's some eyebrow raising price movement, and as 3D Center point out, is this a hint of the sell-off of the RTX 4090 before the RTX 5090 appears on the scene, with its purportedly major performance gains over the current flagship? Most of the current rumors have the RTX 5090 (and RTX 5080) launching at CES 2025, but there has been speculation that the first batch of next-gen Blackwell GPUs could just sneak in at the end of 2024. So, this fresh report could be an indication that the latter might just be the case. That said, we'd be foolish to read all that much into this, but there's no denying it's an interesting development.
NVIDIA is rumored to be ceasing production of the RTX 4090 in October (Image Credit: NVIDIA) There are a couple of things we need to keep a close eye on now. Firstly, how the price of the RTX 4090 moves in the US, and whether it looks like the graphics card is indeed discontinued, as the rumor mill believes. And secondly, whether rumors around the RTX 5090 and 5080 pick up in pace, as if they are nearing launch, we can expect more definitive spillage before too long.
It's true that rumors around these Blackwell GPUs have seen an uptick of late, but we'd expect even more leaks in the near future if there's a chance that NVIDIA is mulling a late 2024 launch. As previous speculation has indicated, there's even a chance the RTX 5080 could emerge first - but if so, it'll likely be followed very swiftly by the RTX 5090. At this point, you also have to wonder - who's buying these RTX 4090s, with the RTX 5090 so very close, in theory? (And more to the point, perhaps, the RTX 5080).
That's a good question, but it probably isn't gamers in the main...
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