- Finnish retailer has released prices for Gigabyte’s RTX 5080 models
- Only the WindForce variant is at MSRP
- The other six RTX 5080 cards shown are 15-35% more expensive
Nvidia’s RTX 5080 has an MSRP of $999 in the US – and in line with other regions – which was a pleasant surprise, but it looks like some gamers’ worst fears might come true if the price of a third-party provider the tables that just appeared are anything to go by.
This information comes from a Finnish retailer, Proshop, which has taken the plunge and listed Gigabyte’s RTX 5080 models with their prices, and only one graphics card is priced at MSRP in Finland (€1,229) out of a total of seven cards.
As VideoCardz reports, only the Gigabyte WindForce model is priced at €1,229, with the other six variants being much more expensive.
Even the most affordable non-WindForce offerings, Gaming OC and Aero OC, both cost €1,419, which is a considerable premium over the base graphics card.
The Aorus variants are still much more expensive, with the most expensive version among them, the Aorus Xtreme WaterForce, reaching €1,669.
This means that Gigabyte has one RTX 5080 card, the WindForce, at MSRP, and the other versions are between 15% and 35% more expensive. Obviously we should be very careful about these prices, in case they turn out to be wrong in some way, or placeholders, but we’re about to publish them now (and they seem plausible).
Analysis: a worrying sign – but don’t panic just yet
As noted at the start, this was the concern I – and many others – expressed at the time of Nvidia’s RTX 5080 pricing announcement.
On the one hand, it was great to see the $999 MSRP attached to the RTX 5080, when rumors suggested Nvidia might sell it for $1,200 in the US (and proportionate to that elsewhere), or maybe be much more than that. Especially since the price of the RTX 5090 has increased.
On the other hand, the main concern was that most third-party models wouldn’t be at MSRP, and that scenario is exactly what appears to be happening with Gigabyte’s RTX 5080 graphics cards – at least if Proshop’s information is correct . And this may not be the case, as we have already mentioned, so we should not jump to conclusions yet.
This remains just a worrying indicator for now, although even if it turns out to be true, it’s possible that other graphics card manufacturers won’t follow suit and offer more models at the MSRP level. Or rather, their second-tier models above the baseline will hopefully not have a 15% increase, but will instead show a more modest increase.
While there are very few third-party RTX 5080 models on sale at (or close to) MSRP, it’s likely that at launch – and perhaps for a while after – these cards will sell out in a flash (along with the founders of Nvidia). Edition). In short, the reality of getting an RTX 5080 at MSRP level is fragile, but there is still hope that this scenario does not come true.
