Nivida isn't as greedy as you think
No, they just misread the room Nvidia this past week announced the 4080 12GB (hereafter the 4080-12) for an eye-watering $899 and the 4080 16GB (4080-16) for $1199. But wait, the 2080 was $699 and the 3080 was $699, why are we suddenly jumping to $899 and $1199 for 4080, a 29% and 71% price increase respectively! This isn’t even the 4080ti! The instinctive conclusion is that Nvidia’s being greedy. I’ve speculated for some time before the announcement that we could see prices go up given Nvidia has seen what people are willing to spend if they have no other choice since gamers still bought GPUs during the mining rush. I pointed to how the 20 series (Turing) increased prices pretty significantly even after the 2018 mining spike was over. I thought this would be another case of something similar. Upon further reflection, I don’t think this is the case. I think it’s possible that Nvidia simply could not get away with charging much less if they want to maintain reasonable pr...