Abysmal RTX 4080 sales supposedly leave retailers with lots of cards in stock as buyers appear to want RTX 4090 instead

We reported last week that the launch stock of the GeForce RTX 4080 is potentially half compared to the launch supply of the RTX 4090. Based on such rumors and past GPU launches, it was logical to think that the RTX 4080 GPUs would sell out quickly on release day with scalpers putting the board up on eBay with ridiculous prices. While the scalped RTX 4080 cards did go up for sale at absurd prices, it appears the reception of the GPU isn’t as strong as expected.

The latest RTX 4080 stock information from Moore’s Law Is Dead alleges that major retailers inside and outside the US are having trouble moving units. Per one MLID source, the retailer received 90 RTX 4080 cards on launch but, till November 18, the retailer still had half of them in stock. The same source says that the 150 RTX 4090 GPUs that they got for launch sold within 24 hours.

Another source shares a similar story. The retailer presumably got a total of 120 RTX 4080 cards for release day but sold less than 40. As a comparison, the retailer had 200 RTX 4090s in stock for opening day which all sold out on the same day. “4080 sucks, let me know when you have a 4090”, were the remarks passed by some of their customers.

The same is the case outside the US where a major retailer who had about the same number of RTX 4080 cards as the RTX 4090 on day one couldn’t even sell a third of their supply.

In short, if these rumors from MLID are anywhere close to the truth, customers are effectively shunning the GPU. In our opinion, although the RTX 4080 is significantly faster than the RTX 3080 and even the RTX 3090 Ti, the US$1,200 price tag is a deal breaker for many. There is also the fact that AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX is less than a month away with a performance that appears to rival the RTX 4080 at a substantially lower price. So, customers who are on the lookout for an RTX 4080-class board may be holding out to see how Team Red's RDNA 3 offerings fare against Team Green’s.

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