The bad: Overpriced.

Nvidia has been increasing the prices of their GPUs lately. I have no idea if this is due to COVID-19, the GPU crisis, or the AI boom. Are their investors pleasing them?

RTX 4090 ($1,600 USD MSRP)

Okay, I know this is an enthusiast-level graphics card, but should this really cost $1,600 USD? For a behemoth like this, I think it should cost around $1,000 USD. 24GB of GDDR6X and 16K CUDA cores shouldn't be more expensive than the majority of people's entire PC setup. Don't get me wrong, its raw performance is unmatched, but that doesn't justify its insane price.

RTX 4080 ($1,200 USD MSRP)

How in the world did RTX 3080 jump from $699 USD to $1,199 USD? The performance gain is around 50%, which is nice, but does that justify increasing its price by 71%?

RTX 4070 Ti ($800 USD MSRP)

This card is a rebranded version of the RTX 4080 12GB model. Nvidia thought that making a video card with less RAM with a noticeable performance decrease from its higher VRAM model was a great idea. They ended up "canceling" the RTX 4080 12GB and rebranding it as RTX 4070 Ti. 4070 Ti is not a bad card, but it is overpriced and has a teeny amount less VRAM than I expected. The 70 series at this point should have 16GB or more of GDDR6X, but this one has 12GB (probably because of it being a rebrand).

The ugly: Overpriced, underperforming

RTX 4070 ($600 USD MSRP)

First off, this GPU is a 70 series card. One thing that Nvidia usually does is make the next-gen 70 series as fast as the 80 Ti series cards (e.g. 3070 = 2080Ti). This is not the case with RTX 4070. It is as fast as the 3080. This means that getting the performance of a 60 Ti card instead. For $600 USD. To make it worse, it's $100 USD more than its predecessor, the RTX 3070, so you're paying more for less. Just like the 4070 Ti, it's only 12GB of VRAM. Should've been 16GB (but y'know, "unlaunched" RTX 4080 16GB)

RTX 4060 Ti ($400/500 USD MSRP)

Whoever at Nvidia designed this card should just get fired. 128-bit memory bus on a high-end card? Is this 2016? 4060 has the performance of a "4050", mainly due to its low memory bus. Only around a 20% uplift in performance over 3060Ti. Nvidia tried arguing that the lower memory bus helps with energy efficiency, but it's a 4nm card. It should already be power-efficient.

Additionally, RTX 4060Ti has only 8GB of 128-bit GDDR6 ($400 model). RTX 3060Ti has 8GB of 256-bit GDDR6X. See the difference? Nvidia used a lower transfer-rate memory on 4060Ti. 8GB is abysmal. Many games, especially the 2023 titles, use more than 8GB of video memory, and this causes stutters, lower-quality textures, and higher RAM usage because the VRAM in 4060 Ti gets exhausted while gaming. The 16GB model of the 4060Ti is $500 USD. This alleviates the VRAM issues this card has, but $500 USD for a 1080p card is crazy. Also, why target 1080p gaming? Even if more than 60% of users according to the Steam Hardware Survey use 1080p, you shouldn't be targeting 1080p in 2023. Go for 1440p. 4060 Ti should've been a 1440p card, not 1080p.

RTX 4060 ($300 USD MSRP)

Same problems as 4060 Ti. 128-bit, 8GB GDDR6, 1080p, you get the drill.

The Good: DLSS 3/3.5

DLSS 3 is a game-changer. While being able to upscale games for more performance, you can now use AI-generated frames to boost your frame rate significantly. The only problem with this feature is that it is exclusive to the RTX 40 series. RTX 20 and 30 do not have Frame Generation. DLSS 3.5 takes this to eleven by adding Ray Reconstruction. It's able to make raytracing look higher quality in video games, denoising it and overall increasing its resolution with little to no performance impact.

Final Opinions

I think the RTX 40 series has to be one of the worst generations of GeForce ever launched. None of the GPUs are particularly compelling, only DLSS 3 is. I would avoid purchasing any RTX 40 series GPUs until Nvidia learns from their mistakes with the RTX 50 series.

How I would fix it (if I could)

• RTX 4090 - Price dropped from $1600 to $1000 USD
• RTX 4080 - Priced dropped from $1200 to $700 USD
• RTX 4070 Ti - Priced dropped from $800 to $600 USD, 16GB of GDDR6X instead of 12GB
• RTX 4070 - Priced dropped from $600 to $500 USD, performance matches that of RTX 3080Ti, 16GB of GDDR6X instead of 12GB
• RTX 4060Ti - Priced dropped from $400/500 to $400 USD, only one model comprised of 12GB of 192-bit GDDR6X, performance should match that of RTX 3080
• RTX 4060 - performance should match that of RTX 3070, 12GB of 192-bit GDDR6X instead of 8GB of 128-bit GDDR6.