Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics cards will hit shelves on Wednesday, October 12, and the GPU leaker Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID) has good news for those fretting about whether they’ll manage to get their hands on stock on day one.
In his latest video (opens in new tab), MLID quotes four different retailer sources who all echo the same thing: finding stock won’t be a problem. “In North America, Nvidia is shopping 4-5x more 4090s for launch compared to what Ampere had shipped”, said one.
Another retailer, after showing MLID a storeroom full of boxed graphics cards, said: “We have hundreds of RTX 409s at this location already, and more trucks arriving on launch day. Forget Ampere, this is just a big launch in general considering the GPU tier.”
That’s a timely reminder that the GPU is for those with deep pockets. With a MSRP of $1,599, it’s not what we’d call a mainstream card, but given the launch of the RTX 3090 was plagued by pandemic-induced shortages and price inflation, it doesn’t sound unreasonable for those with the funds.
And MLID suggests that it should be a good upgrade from the previous generation, promising a boost of around 80% on the 3090 for standard graphics, and about double the ray-traced performance.
There’s also good news on the power front: it’s apparently a lot more stable than the 3090, and less likely to trigger sudden power spikes. Indeed, MLID indicates that if you don’t push it past stock power levels, you’ll be able to sub it in for a 3090 without upgrading your PSU first.
That isn’t to say that it’s going to be a low-power component by any means — it is a 450W TGP card after all — but given earlier rumors pointed to a 600W card, this is certainly a reason to be cheerful with electricity prices on the increase.
On that note, one other interesting tidbit: MLID mentions a 4090 Ti GPU in testing, but not one that is anywhere near ready for showtime. “As of now, Titan Ada is cancelled,” one anonymous insider with a decent track record told the YouTuber. “It’s just too much for now.”
What is “too much” exactly? The 600-700W card would apparently trip breakers, melt power supplies and occasionally melt itself. Yikes.
“It was so big that we usually mounted the motherboard to the side of the card instead of seating the card in a motherboard,” the tipster added.
That’s not to say that something with 4090 Ti branding won’t appear at some point, but it doesn’t sound like it will be anything as ambitious as this, and will likely emerge at a much later date too.
For now, the 4090 is the best you’ll get, then, but for those not wanting to break the bank, stock of the RTX 30-series is now plentiful and increasingly available below MSRP. After a tricky couple of years, it’s finally a good time to be a PC gamer again.
