Rumor | Nvidia's upcoming GTX 2080 GPUs to initially be available for double their US$700 MSRP
Gamers were clearly disappointed to learn that the Nvidia’s GPU prices will not “descend” to their original MSRP marks until Q3 2018, although Nvidia promised to ramp up graphics card production throughout the entire year to meet the demand of both gamers and cryptominers. Since Ethereum is not likely to fully transition to Proof of Stake mining (PoS) this year, the demand for mid-range and high-end GPUs, especially from Nvidia, will remain up there. Keeping in mind that the GTX 1080 Ti flagship is currently priced above US$1,100 at most online retailers and the GTX 1080 had an original MSRP of US$600-700, the upcoming GTX 2080 with Ampere chips will probably not be available for its original MSRP at launch.
TweakTown estimates that the GTX 2080 would end up overall 50% faster than the GTX 1080, but would also have improved power consumption and the faster GDDR6 memory, which would greatly appeal to cryptominers. All things considered, Nvidia cannot possibly decide to sell the GTX 2080 for the usual MSRP of US$600-700, at least not until Q3 2018. Even the GTX 2070 will probably exceed those two figures if it gets the GDDR6 memory.
A more realistic launch price for the GTX 2080 would be US$1,500, while the GTX 2070 could slip under US$1,000 at best. Nvidia’s next gen Ampere gaming GPUs are expected to be launched in April or May, however, rumors are going around about dedicated mining GPUs codenamed Turing. If Nvidia is actually separating its offer into gaming GPUs and mining GPUs, this could help bring down the prices faster.