Best Buy Heavily Discounts Nvidia RTX 30 Graphics Card Stocks

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Clearing the decks for mainstream RTX 40 series cards?

RTX 3080 on sale
(Image credit: Nvidia)

US electronics retailer Best Buy has apparently decided to clear out its existing Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series stock. Earlier today, it put up some actually good Ampere GPU offers in a ‘clearance’ sale, but understandably the stock flew off shelves before anyone could screengrab any crumbs of availability.

Best Buy is the exclusive brick and mortar retailer of Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series Founders Edition GPUs in the US, and in its haste to clear stock, the RTX 3080 10GB FE was probably the biggest bargain among the clearance items. This powerful Ampere architecture card was cut from $699 to $419 to free up shelf space. Curiously, the GeForce RX 3080 FE discount made it even cheaper than RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070 cards that were not in the clearance sale. We’d like to know how many were sold at this very keen price.

(Image credit: Best Buy)

Other high-end RTX 30 GPUs that were in the clearance sale at Best Buy included the RTX 3090 Ti, which was cut from $1999 to $879, RTX 3090 cut to $749, and an RTX 3080 Ti cut to $719. Lower rung RTX 30-series cards didn’t attract compelling discounts, which might mean their replacements are a bit further out. In a search of the site for availability at the time of writing, there appeared to be very few models of RTX 3070 or above now in stock, so the clearance sale seems to have been a success.

(Image credit: Best Buy)

There is some implied good news behind the now evaporated RTX 30-series bargains. Nvidia has had its high-end RTX 40 series graphics cards in retail for several months now, but the traditional volume selling 70-, 60-, and 50-class desktop cards have yet to arrive — though laptop versions are set to launch with availability due soon. In brief, it looks like retailers like Best Buy are clearing stock and shelf space for a new range of GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards, as we can assume the future RTX 4070 and 4060 Ti would have made higher tier RTX 30-series stock look unattractive.

Hopefully Nvidia will launch the RTX 4070, RTX 4060/Ti, and RTX 4050/Ti desktop graphics cards sooner rather than later. There are plenty of leaks about these upcoming mainstream models, and we reported on an apparent exposé of the RTX 4060 specs only yesterday.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

39 Comments Comment from the forums
  • RichardtST
    .....and gone! That 3080 founders was a decent price. It's sold out already. Poof.
    Reply
  • oofdragon
    RichardtST said:
    .....and gone! That 3080 founders was a decent price. It's sold out already. Poof.

    Gone to ebay for around $600
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    RichardtST said:
    .....and gone! That 3080 founders was a decent price. It's sold out already. Poof.
    The 40-series launched at horrific price points, makes sense that offering great deals on 30-series stuff would make them vanish from inventory.

    Might be a sign of Nvidia testing the market to see whether pricing really is the reason for slow sales.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    oofdragon said:
    Gone to ebay for around $600

    Meanwhile in the UK the 3080 is £700+
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    I hope this becomes a trend. GPU prices are way too high.

    Hoping to see big discounts on 30-series laptops soon too. I've been watching a 2-in-1 device at Best Buy that's 25% more than I'm willing to spend. With the paltry specs of the 40-series in the 2023 model, waiting and paying a higher price no longer makes sense.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    I wouldn't buy a 30 series card, with their low v-ram buffers. Hogwarts Legacy is just the beginning of not having enough v-ram, on those cards.
    Reply
  • zx128k
    Best time to get a 30 series card.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    InvalidError said:
    The 40-series launched at horrific price points, makes sense that offering great deals on 30-series stuff would make them vanish from inventory.

    Might be a sign of Nvidia testing the market to see whether pricing really is the reason for slow sales.
    It's worth noting that nowhere else I checked had prices anywhere remotely close to Best Buy's. So, I'd say you shouldn't over-generalize this event. I don't know what possessed them to do such heavy discounts, but it sure seems like they didn't need to drop the prices anywhere near as much to clear that inventory.

    I checked after seeing this posted on another site, before this article even showed up on Toms, and the inventory was already cleared out.

    zx128k said:
    Best time to get a 30 series card.
    You'd think so, but these deals might've been just a promotional stunt. Not to say 30-series prices aren't down, but nothing like these were.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    logainofhades said:
    I wouldn't buy a 30 series card, with their low v-ram buffers. Hogwarts Legacy is just the beginning of not having enough v-ram, on those cards.
    Not that I personally care (not a gamer), but it might help others if you'd offer your advice for how much memory you think they should aim for.

    One of the models sold at a big discount was the RTX 3080 that has 10 GB. At $420, it was a steal. The RTX 4070 Ti stands only a little better, at 12 GB. Is 10 GB bad, but 12 GB good?
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    bit_user said:
    It's worth noting that nowhere else I checked had prices anywhere remotely close to Best Buy's. So, I'd say you shouldn't over-generalize this event.
    Suspecting that Nvidia may be testing the market by telling Best Buy (its only official retail partner for FE cards) to do this sale isn't generalizing.
    Reply