Nvidia RTX 4070 Super sales are so bad even scalpers don’t want it

Players are reportedly not speeding out to purchase the newest Nvidia mid-range GPU, with GeForce RTX 4070 Tremendous gross sales being described as a “catastrophe” by Nvidia graphics card maker, and scalpers reportedly canceling their orders. The brand new GPU was launched earlier this week for $599, including extra cores and sooner clock speeds to the unique RTX 4070 specs to enhance gaming efficiency, however the brand new launch doesn’t seem like it’s going effectively.

You possibly can learn all about this new Nvidia GPU in our full RTX 4070 Super review, the place we gave it a rating of eight out of ten, making it one of many best graphics card choices. It wasn’t a clear win, although. The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT continues to be a really robust competitor, coming with a full 16GB of VRAM for a lot much less cash, and it’s solely the superior ray tracing talents and widespread DLSS 3 help that (simply) make the RTX 4070 Tremendous a greater purchase.

There actually haven’t been any of the inventory shortages we’ve seen with another latest Nvidia GPU launches, and a number of other fashions are nonetheless out there and in inventory for the $599 MSRP on retailers similar to NewEgg. What’s extra, tech YouTuber Moore’s Legislation is Useless has quoted a number of sources in a video (which you’ll see under), together with retailers, board companions, and even scalpers, claiming that RTX 4070 Tremendous gross sales have been disappointing.

“Dude, 4070 Tremendous gross sales are a DISASTER,” stated one board accomplice, including that “frankly we’re getting fed up with being advised to push fashions over MSRP whereas Nvidia will get to promote Founders Editions from their web site.” A number of retailers are additionally quoted, with one nameless giant retailer saying that gross sales have been decrease than these of the unique, and obscenely overpriced, GeForce RTX 4080, and that it was solely the MSRP fashions that have been promoting.

One other retailer stated that not a single individual got here into the shop or referred to as concerning the RTX 4070 Tremendous on launch day, whereas one other stated it had “really rejected a proposal to obtain ~200 4070 Supers from an AIB this week.” The explanation given reveals a recurring theme between the responses, which is that nobody is fascinated about paying for souped-up, overclocked playing cards with a great deal of RGB lighting on this worth vary. “We had a sense it could be practically unimaginable to get players in 2024 to purchase a 12GB GPU above $600,” says the retailer.

Even scalpers are regretting charging their bots into on-line shops to inhale as many RTX 4070 Tremendous playing cards as doable. “It was very easy for us to purchase 4070 Supers in the present day on BestBuy.com & Nvidia’s web site,” says a consultant of a scalper collective, however provides that “we’ll be canceling most of our orders after seeing the dangerous gross sales…anticipate extra Founders to pop up quickly!”

What’s gone fallacious right here? Moore’s Legislation is Useless has a principle, suggesting that “Nvidia’s vanity and stubbornness has led them to fixing the cardboard within the fallacious means,” and that what the RTX 4070 Tremendous actually wanted was extra VRAM and a less expensive worth. “In 2024, 12GB feels smaller than it did in 2023,” he says, pointing to the RTX 4070 Tremendous’s efficiency falling off a cliff in Alan Wake 2 at 4K with ray tracing enabled.

Nonetheless, the RTX 4070 Tremendous is designed to be a mid-range GPU for gaming at 2,560 x 1,440, and the GPU wouldn’t be highly effective sufficient to run this recreation at these settings anyway. Even with 16GB of VRAM it nonetheless wouldn’t hit a playable body fee – the RTX 4080 solely averages 32.7fps with these settings. In the mean time, 12GB of VRAM is (nearly) sufficient to deal with a lot of the gaming situations you’ll throw on the RTX 4070 Tremendous, however there’s not a lot headroom for future proofing, and that tightness is disappointing in the event you’ve spent $599 on a graphics card.

There’s some reality concerning the pricing and timing right here too. It wasn’t that way back that Nvidia 70-series playing cards value beneath $400, and a $599 card with solely 12GB of VRAM in 2024 doesn’t seem like good worth now. What’s extra, a $699 overclocked card with this spec appears even worse, even when it does have DLSS 3 help and higher ray tracing efficiency than the Radeon RX 7800 XT. Plus, individuals usually don’t have a lot cash to spend in January after the vacations. Additionally, the Founders Version has bought out now, so some persons are a minimum of shopping for this new GPU.

Nvidia is launching two different new Tremendous GPUs this month, the RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4080 Super, and we’ll be reviewing them as quickly as they’re out, so control our evaluations to see how they carry out.