Nvidia RTX 3090 prices revealed — and they’re 3x the Xbox Series X

By Roland Moore-Colyer
last updated

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 listings show crazy-expensive graphics cards

Gigabyte RTX 3090
(Image credit: Gigabyte/Best Buy)

We are mere days away from Nvidia’s release of its new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000-series graphics cards, and listings for the enormously powerful RTX 3090 have started to pop up on Amazon (opens in new tab) and Best Buy (opens in new tab). 

Versions of the GeForce RTX 3090 have been listed from EVGA and Gigabyte, offering ‘aftermarket’ takes on Nvidia’s own Founders Edition RTX 3090. These graphics cards pack in 10,496 CUDA cores and 24GB of GDDR6X memory under a triple-fan chassis, promising vast amounts of graphical power to drive next-generation games. 

The graphical grunt the RTX 3090 is not only set to easily blow away the performance of Nvidia’s last high-end consumer graphics card, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, but also offer far more power than the PS5 or Xbox Series X. However, that power will come at a hefty price. 

We already know the Founders Edition RTX 3090 will go for $1,499, but third-party versions will be even more expensive, with the Gigabyte Eagle and Gigabyte Gaming versions listed at $1,549,99 and $1,579.99. And you’ll want a pretty powerful PC to take advantage of all the GPU power the new Ampere architecture offers, which means building an RTX 3090 gaming PC will likely cost north of $2,000. 

For the price of the graphics card alone, you'll be able to buy three $499 Xbox Series X consoles and still have a bit of cash to spare. PC gaming has always been expensive on a hardware front, but this is certainly a hefty price. 

It’s also worth noting that Gigabyte’s graphics cards are using air-based cooling. As such, aftermarket versions with fancier cooling systems, such as water cooling systems, will likely cost even more. 

EVGA RTX 3090

(Image credit: EVGA )

The EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 Kingpin, for example, comes with a twin-fan radiator, and the also sports a water cooling system. The card's price has yet to be revealed but expect it to be eye-wateringly expensive.

But if you’re after the very best tech gaming can offer and want a PC over a next-generation console, then the GeForce RTX 3090 is the way to go. It will deliver 4K resolution, 60 frames per second gaming, with ray-tracing enabled. And in some cases it promising to offer 8K gaming.

This makes it a fantastically powerful and expensive bit of gaming hardware. But it should deliver performance that will take years for other graphics cards and gaming tech to catch up with.

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face. 

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3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • CaliChris614
    I feel like this article really missed the mark. The RTX 3090 vs consoles is not a realistic comparison. The 3090 is clearly not the next generation of the 2080 ti, it is closer to the Titan cards. Nvidia is at fault in this confusion, they are obviously trying to blur the lines between titan and their consumer cards, no doubt to push people that are on the fence to make the leap. Sure, you can game on them, and Nvidia is pushing that aspect more this generation, but these cards clearly are for more than gaming.

    This article is the equivalent of a comparison between a sports car and a race car. Sure, you could drive the race car on the street, but the value of the car is in making money on the track. Comparing the price for performance between a mustang and an F1 car would be nonsense, and so is the article.

    The RTX 3080 is the flagship consumer card. If we want to compare next gen consoles vs next gen PC gaming, that is the comparison that should be made.
    Reply
  • cirdecus
    From a technical perspective, there's nothing different between the 3090 and the 3080 that is for commercial use only. The 3090 is not a quadro part. Sure, they may have killed the "Commercial" Titan and replaced it with the 3090, but the card is a gaming card. I also think that 24GB of memory is going to come in handy very soon and people with early 3080's will wish they had more.

    Marketing Answer - Yes the 3090 is a multi-market card because of it's extreme power.
    Technical Answer - The 3090 is just a faster 3080 with more memory. It's not a Quadro and it should be marketed and used in both gaming and some commercial applications, which is exactly what Nvidia is doing. The other reason they're changing things with the 3090 is because of the price. The Titan price was out of reach for the gaming market for the most part and made little sense to purchase just for gaming. The 3090 is priced right for crazy top end gaming. The 3090 is the top end of gaming, not the 3080.
    Reply
  • CaliChris614
    cirdecus said:
    From a technical perspective, there's nothing different between the 3090 and the 3080 that is for commercial use only. The 3090 is not a quadro part. Sure, they may have killed the "Commercial" Titan and replaced it with the 3090, but the card is a gaming card. I also think that 24GB of memory is going to come in handy very soon and people with early 3080's will wish they had more.

    Marketing Answer - Yes the 3090 is a multi-market card because of it's extreme power.
    Technical Answer - The 3090 is just a faster 3080 with more memory. It's not a Quadro and it should be marketed and used in both gaming and some commercial applications, which is exactly what Nvidia is doing. The other reason they're changing things with the 3090 is because of the price. The Titan price was out of reach for the gaming market for the most part and made little sense to purchase just for gaming. The 3090 is priced right for crazy top end gaming. The 3090 is the top end of gaming, not the 3080.

    Hi Cirdecus, thanks for the reply. I agree that the 3090 is not a Quadro part, but neither was Titan. Nvidia themselves list the 3080 as their flagship card. The author of this article was aligning the 3090 with the 2080ti, which is not the correct comparison. If the 3090 is to be compared to a current gen card, it should be compared to a Titan RTX card. In the marketing material for the 3090, it specifically states "Titan class".

    My point was, while you can certainly game on a titan, that is not its sole purpose and it is a very bad value proposition as a gaming only card. The same holds true for 3090. I know the author of this article wanted to blow everyone's minds by comparing a $500 console to a $1500 graphics card, but he might as well have compared the console to a $100,000 Tesla. You can game on both, but if you buy a Tesla to sit in your garage and play Cuphead, you should be shot :)
    Reply