Nvidia RTX 4070 appears to be readily available, AMD responds with sweet Radeon 6800 deals

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: Those currently seeking an upper-mid-range GPU have multiple good options on-hand. The newly released GeForce RTX 4070 has dodged the supply problems that plagued its predecessors two years ago, and AMD has rapidly countered Nvidia's new offer with significant price drops on some of the top RDNA2 cards.

The RTX 4070 seems to be holding firm to its $600 MSRP in the days following its launch. This week, several good options have appeared around that price point as AMD slashes the Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT to $470 and $540, respectively.

The situation contrasts starkly with late 2020, when surging demand and global supply chain disruptions made getting an RTX 3000 or RX 6000 GPU a nightmare. Those cards, like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, immediately sold out upon launch and quickly reappeared at inflated prices. Many customers resorted to arcane shopping methods like hiring bots or following Discord notification links into mobile app shopping carts.

We are clearly in a different world two and a half years later. Declining PC hardware markets throughout 2022 show that demand has cooled and supply constraints have loosened. Only the Founders Edition GPUs seem in short supply, with Amazon showing significant markups.

Searching for Nvidia's latest mid-range GPU on Best Buy and Newegg offers a healthy range of options that customers can add to their shopping carts without much trouble.

Reports that Nvidia isn't rushing to replenish 40 series stocks further indicate the current state of the GPU market. According to DigiTimes, Team Green hasn't asked assemblers to ramp up production. Nvidia could be waiting until surplus 30 series inventories sell.

Meanwhile, Newegg is currently selling the Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT for over $100 off their MSRP, putting them below the RTX 4070. The deals appear limited but are still up as of now.

TechSpot's RTX 4070 review ranked its performance and value just above the 6800 GPUs, but the deals change the calculus somewhat. The AMD cards have 16GB of VRAM to the 4070's 12 GB, and a lack of VRAM has recently been a significant problem for Nvidia cards. The deciding factor in the comparison will likely be how much each consumer values DLSS and Nvidia's advantages in ray tracing performance.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98322-rtx-4070-launch-avoids-availability-problems-amd-responds.html

 

[noel24]

I'm sorry. Is This sarcasm? Does the article seem to spin the lack of RTX4070 sales as a success?
Simply put It, You cannot charge COVID prices during recession.

 

[noel24]

I'm sorry. Is This sarcasm? Does the article seem to spin the lack of RTX4070 sales as a success?
Simply put It, You cannot charge COVID prices during recession.

Yeah, English not my Mother tongue, but It's sarcasm. I just didn't know You can do This...

 

[yRaz]

Thanks nVidia for finally getting AMD to price their cards Appropriately. The 6000 series is actually a great line of products and performance has gone up significantly through driver optimizations since launch. The 6800 you're buying now is not the 6800 you bought a launch.

nVidia has a solid line of products and some really cool tech to go with it but we've essentially been in an abusive relationship with them for the last several years with even a major board partner(EVGA) finally saying "I've had enough". when the 6800xt was selling as much as a 3080(at MSRP) AMD didn't seem very competitive. Now we're years after this nVidia is basically handing market share to AMD. Ray-tracing is a nothing-burger at this point. Usage is low even with tech like DLSS. DLSS usage is low enough that they're trying to integrate it browsers and media players.

Now we have the 4070 which costs about the same and performs slightly worse than a 3080(when DLSS isn't enabled). If there was long term support for DLSS then it might be a compelling tech but it's complete unacceptable for something like a 3090 to be made obsolete by a 4070 because nVidia is no longer support the software behind it. For people who paid $2000+ for a 4090, will it become obsolete when nVidia releases the 50 series? I get it that DLSS 3.0 is build on top of 2.0 so technically older cards still benefit from it. But will we see a similar thing with DLSS 4.0? Will the 50 series support it fully with the 40 series only support the 3.0 instruction set? I really don't know what to call DLSS on a hardware level. They both use nVidias OFA and Tensor cores but DLSS 3.0 seems limited to nVidias 3rd gen tensor cores

I can understand that for products that essentially cost as much as a weekend out at the bar that you can get in the mind set "I only paid so much for this". When you start getting into the $1000+ market you have to look at these products as an investment. I'm tired of hearing "but you get DLSS with nVidia cards" because that's not true. You get modern DLSS for about a year, less if you buy a "mid ranged" card towards the end of the products life cycle. It would be one think if the 30 series supported the new DLSS but we have 3 generations of cards and 3 different versions of DLSS. If I see a 4th version of DLSS only support on a newer 4 generations of card I will completely disregard the tech.

And I don't want people to get the wrong idea, I think DLSS is a great technology. I just think that nVidia isn't properly supporting it. If it isn't going to get proper support then it isn't a selling point. FSR isn't as good as DLSS but at least I know that if I buy a 7900XTX that it will support later and future versions of it. FSR works on nVidia cards that were around before AMD even created it. What happens when people with 4070's have to start using FSR? Was it even a selling point?

This is a subject I get very heated on. I have owned nearly every generation of nVidia card since the 7800GT(yes, the AGP version) and only recently switched to AMD because I'm just tired of their crap. I've been an nVidia customer for 20 years and enough is enough.

 

[redhat]

Frankly I will not buy 500$+ product to enable DLSS or FSR. I may consider it for longevity as this card in few years will be entry-mid range gpu, so upscaling will help at that moment but to buy it and enable upscaling right away....
personally I still notice that these techs as well as RT are scene based rather than game based technique as they shine in some places whereas they are non impressive in others.

 

[yRaz]

Frankly I will not buy 500$+ product to enable DLSS or FSR. I may consider it for longevity as this card in few years will be entry-mid range gpu, so upscaling will help at that moment but to buy it and enable upscaling right away....
personally I still notice that these techs as well as RT are scene based rather than game based technique as they shine in some places whereas they are non impressive in others.

It doesn't have enough VRAM for upscaling as it ages. It barely has enough vram for games right now.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Launching an unexciting product is one way to avoid supply issues...

 

[DSirius]

Ha ha, this is one of the best title for an article I've read nowadays.
Kudos for the editor for giving us the pulse of the videocard market right from the title.
Keep up finding and posting such subtle and keen titles for articles.

 

[takaozo]

There is no such "sweat deal" on AMD cards where I live, only 6700 and lower models are available. But even those are starting at 600 Euros. The new 4070 is 800 Euros and the 4070Ti is 1000 Euros.

 

[brucek]

Is AMD still making new 6800 inventory, or are these good deals on the remaining inventory while it lasts?

 

[EdmondRC]

With so many games on the horizon requiring more than 12GB of VRAM, it's not surprising to me that the 4070 is just not an attractive buy. I think the 4060 would be okay at 12GB, but the 4070 and 4070 Ti should have 16GB VRAM. Especially for what Nvidia is charging for these cards. Also the 7900 XT is slowly dropping below $800 , I really think that is a card to watch because I could see it being $700 in the near future which would really put a hurting on the 4070 ti and 4070. I

 

[DerHaluter]

4070 would have been a great card if it would be offered cheaper and with 16 GB VRAM. But nvidia does not want a round product. They want a product that people have to replace in a year or too, is its vram runs full.

 

[JrFoz]

My understanding is that all US Founders cards are sold at Best Buy. All Amazon Founders cards are probably going to be in lower quantities and higher prices, because they are being resold.

 

[yRaz]

My understanding is that all US Founders cards are sold at Best Buy. All Amazon Founders cards are probably going to be in lower quantities and higher prices, because they are being resold.

Amazons algorithm automatically adjusts prices based on supply in some really silly ways. And it's based on the percentage of supply sold. For example you could have 100 cards, sell 5 and the price would hardly moved. You could have 10 cards, sell 5 and it would double the price. Amazon is a really bad place to shop, tbh.

 

[Biostud]

Overall this is simply a lackluster generation. I had hoped to buy a 7800XT, but with it sorely missing in action and relatively low improvement of RDNA3 over RDNA2, I ended up with a 6800xt.

 

[Irata]

The newly released GeForce RTX 4070 has dodged the supply problems that plagued its predecessors two years ago.

That‘s an interesting way of saying customers aren‘t enthusiastic being offered the same price/perf they could get for several months now from the previous gen.

 

[captaincranky]

This is a subject I get very heated on. I have owned nearly every generation of nVidia card since the 7800GT(yes, the AGP version)

Most exalted Prince, have I got a war story from that era for you.

I had an eMachines with an actual P4 and a genuine Intel board. (Well if you must, I know Foxconn makes them). eMachines was having terrible trouble with cheap OEM PSUs blowing up, and taking the boards with them.. So, they weren't taking any chances with their "higher end" machines. The board was an Intel G-915 (Matx), but they shipped them without a Pcie socket. This I suppose, was to prevent overloading their crap PSUs. This was unbeknownst to me at the time. I went to CompUSA, bought a Pcie video card, took it home, and tried to install it.

Imagine my chagrin, when the only socket it would fit in, left me with the video output terminals pointing toward the interior of the case

 

[Julnor]

If this card had 16 GB VRAM and at minimum 256 bit bus, ideally higher, I would have considered it even at $600. But you're not going to get me to shell that out for an obviously intentionally gimped card at this price level. This is a $400 at best GPU in 2023. And even that is generous. This is unquestionably a 60 level GPU.

The pandemic and crypto are both over. These prices just are not in any way appealing to me. If you really just want to unload $600, give it to a food bank, that will do more good. Otherwise save up and get the 4090.

 

[captaincranky]

Only the Founders Edition GPUs seem in short supply, with Amazon showing significant markups.

I thought I read (here maybe?), that Nvidia wasn't even going to build reference cards with the 4xxx series.

Or are we talking about two different things?

 

[yRaz]

Most exalted Prince, have I got a war story from that era for you.

I had an eMachines with an actual P4 and a genuine Intel board. (Well if you must, I know Foxconn makes them). eMachines was having terrible trouble with cheap OEM PSUs blowing up, and taking the boards with them.. So, they weren't taking any chances with their "higher end" machines. The board was an Intel G-915 (Matx), but they shipped them without a Pcie socket. This I suppose, was to prevent overloading their crap PSUs. This was unbeknownst to me at the time. I went to CompUSA, bought a Pcie video card, took it home, and tried to install it.

Imagine my chagrin, when the only socket it would fit in, left me with the video output terminals pointing toward the interior of the case

That is most unfortunate, I had no idea. I would have never allowed a servant such as yourself to not only lack a PCIe port but to have bad capacitors, aswell? You must come to me at once with such injustices and I will assure you nothing but the best, gilded PCIe ports and capacitors! How can I expect to have my morning habanero lube on time if my servants have such low quality capacitors!

 

[HardReset]

Is AMD still making new 6800 inventory, or are these good deals on the remaining inventory while it lasts?

Navi 32 is probably launching within three months or something so this is classic slash prices for older stuff and get rid of them -case. Of course AMD needed to know how much Nvidia charges from 4070 to price slash be effective. So I highly doubt AMD still makes any RX 68xx and 69xx series chips.

 

[mbk34]

I'm full of admiration for any company that can sell a $400 product for $600. Though it does seem a bit embarrassing that it can only match the performance of AMD's 3 year old cards.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

High inventory is not the reason why these cards are still on the shelves and available days after they launched.

Same thing with the 4070Ti and the 4080. They're on the shelves because of the cost and performance they offer at those price points.

The only card that sold well was the 4090. It was months until after the launch you were able to start finding them sitting on shelves for more than 24 hours.

 

[m3tavision]

The RTX 4070 is unappealing in every sense... specially price/performance.

 

[Avro Arrow]

So here's the tale of the tape:

RX 6800 XT: uses 30% more electricity
RX 6800 XT: has 33% more VRAM
RTX 4070: costs 11% more money

It completely depends on where you live and how much you game per day because I know the the price of electricity currently varies WIDELY.

In the UK, it will cost an extra £55 per year to operate based on the 31.8p/kWh and 5hrs of use per day. Of course YMMV but I think that it's better to overestimate than underestimate. In this case, the RTX 4070 could be the better choice money-wise but at the same time, there's no question that it will require replacement before the RX 6800 XT so there's that cost to also take into account.

In Canada, where electricity is much cheaper because of our massive hydro and nuclear grid, we'd be looking at less than $20CAD per year so the obvious choice for us is the RX 6800 XT. For us it's cheaper to buy, the operating cost is inconsequential and the 16GB will ensure that it won't need to be replaced as soon as the RTX 4070.

Maybe this is why AMD hasn't released anything new. They're actually being successful at fighting the RTX 40-series with their last-gen cards. The fact that the prices are so low tells me that there are still a lot of RX 6000-series cards that need to be sold off before they continue with RX 7000-series launches.