Despite being Nvidia's most expensive consumer graphics card, demand for the RTX 4090 apparently remains high, and we've noticed that the Founders Edition model is routinely going out of stock regularly. It's the fastest card in our list of the best graphics cards, but for most of the past year it has been available at or just under MSRP. Now that's no longer true, as prices of AIB partner RTX 4090 cards have increased by $50 over the past month. At present, the least expensive 4090 cards we can find in stock cost $1,654.99 from Amazon or $1,649.99 at Newegg.
Amazon pricing history from CamelCamelCamel indicates the price of "lesser" (reference model) AIB partner RTX 4090 graphics cards has increased in price by nearly $100 from mid-June to August of this year. That includes cards like the PNY Verto XLR8 Epic-X, Asus TUF, Zotac AMP! Extreme, and Gigabyte Gaming OC. Plenty of models are also no longer for sale, though it's not clear if they've been superseded by newer variants or if they're still in production.
But regardless of which card you look at, none of the RTX 4090 models can be found at the original $1599 MSRP right now. Price increases started occurring around mid-June through September. Amazon's listing for the Gigabyte Gaming OC reached a yearly low price of $1,616.43 back in early August but quickly escalated in price up to $1,699.99 once September rolled in. Asus' TUF card shows similar behavior, having an all-time low price of $1,699.99 in mid-June, and holding the $1,730 mark for a few months until it finally escalated to $1,799.99 (with spikes of up to $1,819.99) starting in September.
The only potential exception to this pricing behavior is with the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, which is sold exclusively at Best Buy and is required to be sold at MSRP. However, due to its flat $1,599 price, Nvidia's own-brand card is regularly out of stock, making availability inconsistent. The RTX 4090's price increases have also been seen in Europe, where even the Founders Edition prices have gone up by €30 since May of this year.
We're not sure if there's new and increased demand for the RTX 4090, but these new price fluctuations correlate with recent RTX 4090 shortages we heard about in Japan two weeks ago. Tokyo is reportedly suffering a massive RTX 4090 shortage across the city, making it difficult for locals to consistently find Nvidia's flagship in stock anywhere. The shortage was apparently so bad that one Japanese store owner thought the shortage was a worldwide issue.
Between these modest price adjustments and the news from Tokyo, we could see a worldwide shortage and even higher prices if the trends continue. But most likely, this is just be a hiccup in the supply chain that will rectify itself soon. After all, we are now officially coming up on the holiday shopping spree season. Maybe we'll soon see a bunch of "deals" of RTX 4090 cards where prices fall back to MSRP? We can only hope.
