NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card has been out since mid-November and is a great performer in many resolutions and titles. However, with NVIDIA setting its price tag at $1200, it is an expensive product to afford and represents a considerable price jump compared to older xx80 GPU generations. According to MyDrivers, NVIDIA could lower the price starting in mid-December, to better suit the needs of consumers and have a competitive product. With AMD's RDNA3-based graphics cards releasing in the following days, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX costing $999 is a direct competitor to GeForce RTX 4080. If NVIDIA plans to cut the massive MSRP of the RTX 4080, then we expect it to be in the range of Radeon RX 7900 XTX to create better market competition.

Of course, this is only wishful thinking and a rumor that MyDrivers has reported, so we have to wait until the middle of this month to find out if NVIDIA announces the alleged price cut.

The most expensive custom-design NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 will be priced at $1,550, putting it just $50 short of the $1,600 baseline MSRP of the much faster RTX 4090, according to a pricing leak of custom-design cards on popular PC components retailer MicroCenter. The most interesting takeaway from this leak is that there will actually be RTX 4080 cards at the NVIDIA-set baseline MSRP of $1,200. These include the GIGABYTE Eagle, ZOTAC Trinity, ASUS TUF Gaming, and PNY XLR8 Verto. NVIDIA appears to be telling its partners to sell at least one custom-design RTX 4080 SKU at the baseline price.

Most factory-overclocked custom-design RTX 4080 SKUs are within $125 of the $1,200 baseline, with the GIGABYTE Eagle OC priced at $1,240, GIGABYTE Gaming OC at $1,280, MSI Ventus 3X OC at $1,280, and the premium MSI Gaming X Trio at $1,325. The top-tier custom-design cards start here, with the GIGABYTE AORUS Master priced at $1,350, the MSI SUPRIM X (air-cooled) at $1,400, the ZOTAC AMP Extreme AIRO at $1,400, ASUS TUF Gaming OC at $1,500; and the ASUS ROG Strix OC at $1,550, which is just $50 short of the cheapest RTX 4090 (baseline-spec). Will anyone pick the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080 O16G over the cheapest RTX 4090 (assuming availability of both)? That's a social experiment to watch out for.

The AM5 motherboard prices that cropped up over the weekend do indeed appear to be placeholders or early cash grab pricing, as MSI has revealed its official pricing for four of its upcoming motherboards in a live stream. Although the pricing is still very high, it's not as insanely high as the early listing suggested. Starting at the bottom with the Pro X670-P WiFi, we're looking at a US MSRP of US$329 excluding tax and an EU MSRP of €395 including VAT. Next up we have the MPG X670E Carbon WiFi for US$499/€599, which is a steep jump in the eurozone, but it's actually less than what the current exchange rate from US dollar to Euro is, if you add 20 percent VAT.

This is followed by the MEG X670E ACE for US$799/€969, which doesn't look like a particularly attractive option. Finally we have the MEG X670E Godlike, which retails for US$1299/€1599, but with early listings in Europe showing it at €2399. It puts the Godlike more in line with the previous Godlike board from MSI, but it's likely to be one of the most expensive X670E boards on the market. It's mentioned in the live stream that prices are expected to come down sometime after the initial launch and this is something we've also heard from other motherboard vendors. MSI aren't mincing any words about their pricing, but that's not going to help anyone interested in getting onboard AMD's AM5 platform. The live stream is linked below for those that are interested in more details about these boards from MSI.

AMD has come up with new MSRPs for its Radeon RX 6000 series RDNA2 graphics cards, in a bid to better compete against NVIDIA's RTX 30-series high-end cards, as the product lifecycles of both companies draw to a close. The new price list was finalized on September 15, and is beginning to take effect in popular online retailers. The latest prices see the top Radeon RX 6950 XT at $949, and the RX 6900 XT $699. The latter offers better value, as it's within 5% of the RX 6950 XT, while being $250 cheaper. The RX 6800 XT drops to $599, which makes it $100 cheaper still than the RX 6900 XT, while being within 5% relative performance. If you can find an RX 6800 (non-XT), its MSRP is set at $549.

MSRP cuts also take effect on performance-segment and mid-range SKUs. The RX 6750 XT is now a $419 SKU, and the RX 6700 XT is just $379. Both cards perform in the league of the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070, making them interesting SKUs to consider. The RX 6650 XT, which replaces the RX 6600 XT from the product stack, is priced at $299. If you can find an RX 6600 XT, it should start around the $239-mark. The entry-level RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 are finally under the $200-mark where they belong, with the RX 6500 XT going for $169, and the RX 6400 at $149. NVIDIA already debuted its RTX 40-series "Ada" graphics cards, but only at the very high-end, with the RTX 4090 expected to go on sale mid-October, at $1,600. AMD's next generation will be unveiled on November 3.

AGON by AOC—one of the world's leading gaming monitor and IT accessories brands - presents the first monitors from the new, 5th generation of the AGON series: the AG275QX/EU and the AG275QXN/EU. Featuring a 27" (68.6 cm) display size and Fast IPS (AG275QX/EU) or Fast VA panels (AG275QXN/EU), both QHD models reach a 165 Hz refresh rate and offer 1 ms GtG response time to display fast moving, competitive action accurately. Meanwhile, DisplayHDR 400 and a wide colour gamut render popping, vivid colours.

The AG275QXN/EU features an industry-first flat Fast VA panel, with a responsiveness fit for competitive multiplayer titles while having the rich contrast of VA panels to create a fantastic immersion for story-driven, single player games. The AG275QX/EU on the other hand, features superior colour accuracy and 10-bit colour depth with its Fast IPS panel, ideal for the content creator/gamer audience. In line with AOC's dedication to sustainability, the monitors are sold in paper cushion packaging that is 100% recyclable.

For those of you that are eagerly awaiting the Ryzen 7000-series CPUs, details of the potential pricing has appeared over at Canadian e-tailer DirectDial. @momomo_us was first to post the details on Twitter, but didn't provide any details of who the e-tailer was, but some sleuthing using the AMD ordering codes soon brought us to DirectDial. The company has listed the all four expected CPU models with pricing and it appears that AMD has decided to stop providing coolers entirely, as none of the four upcoming CPUs appear to be available with a cooler in the box. All the model names ending WOF are retail packaged CPUs and the ones missing WOF at the end of the product number are tray CPUs from what we can tell.

As for the pricing, the Ryzen 5 7600X is listed at CA$435 or about US$340, with the Ryzen 7 7700X coming in at CA$631 or US$494. The Ryzen 9 7900X is CA$798/US$625 and finally the Ryzen 9 7950X is a steep CA$1158/US$907. @momomo_us also found some tray pricing from a different retailer and these CPUs are priced a few bucks cheaper, but we were unable to locate who the retailer is. Note that electronics and computer parts appear to be priced a fair bit higher in Canada than the US on average. As such, these prices should only be taken as an indication of what the retail price in Canada might end up being and not what the actual MSRP will land at, when AMD decides to launch these CPUs. Currently the retail date is expected to be on the 15th of September.

Update 10:49 UTC: The tray CPU retailer is PC-Canada.

Graphics card prices continue to fall in China with NVIDIA & AMD holding excessive stock of RTX 3000/RX 6000 cards without enough consumers interested in buying them. The companies have resisted pressure to lower the official MSRP of these cards with most retailers now offering discounts of between 5% and 30%. The largest drops are with flagship cards such as the NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti which is now available for 9499 RMB (1415 USD) which is 38% below MSRP while the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is 4999 RMB (744 USD) a 37.5% reduction. The prices for all graphics cards are now below MSRP with drops amounting to 20% on average for NVIDIA and 19% for AMD.

Intel is set to launch its 13th generation Raptor Lake processor lineup for desktop users sometime in September or October. However, the market is already supplied with early-stage engineering samples of Raptor Lake-S SKUs used for testing and software optimization. Today, we have the first listing of the upcoming flagship Intel Core i9-13900K processor with eight P-cores and 16 E-Cores on the CPU. The anonymous seller claims that the CPU is working with ASUS Z690 ROG Apex motherboards, boots up, and can be overclocked, which means that this is one of the newer engineering sample revisions. The sample was listed for 2850 Chinese Yuan, translating to about 426 USD. This price should be close to the final MSRP, and the CPU is already sold.

What is interesting is the appearance of this CPU on the black market way ahead of the launch. We can expect to see more details emerge as we get closer to the launch time later this year.

Graphics card prices have been on a steady decline in the past few months, following their peak in May of last year when we saw double and triple pricing compared to the baseline MSRP value. According to the 3DCenter.org report, which tracks graphics card prices in Germany and Austria, we have information that AMD GPU prices have dipped below MSRP, while NVIDIA GPUs are very close to baseline listed prices. The report tracks Ethereum mining profitability and displays it in the yellow line. As the line is declining, so are the GPU prices. For AMD, the prices are now 8% below the 100% of MSRP. At 92%, consumers can find AMD GPUs at a slight discount. While AMD cards are slightly cheaper, NVIDIA GPUs are now at 102% of the MSRP, the lowest price point since the launch.

Cooler Master launches the availability of the all-new GM Series Curved Monitor lineup for work and play. The ultra-fast GM27-CFX with a 240 Hz refresh rate is available starting today May 26 2022 while the ultra-wide GM34-CWQ ARGB hits shelves on May 30 2022.

GM27-CFX
Cooler Master's new FHD GM27-CFX 1500R Curved monitor delivers outstanding performance for "Work & Play" Setups with a 98% DCI-P3 color spectrum coverage. The GM27-FQX runs an ultra-fast 240 Hz framerate with 0.5 ms response time and features quantum dot picture quality enabling a 3001:1 contrast ratio for deep blacks and bright whites.

Pricing for AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards has been evolving positively for the last seven months, experiencing a downtrend that has brought street prices closer to the actual MSRP on the best graphics cards. According to 3D Center's price analysis of the Austrian and German markets, GPU pricing for both AMD and NVIDIA's latest GPUs have reached historical lows - although these lows are still at a premium over MSRP. Anyone looking to buy an AMD graphics card is now looking at an average markup of 12% over MSRP, while NVIDIA cards seem to be holding their inflated values slightly better, and still stand at 119% of MSRP.

The price action comes on the back of months of increasing supply at retailers, alongside reduced demand from Ethereum miners due to falling ETH prices ($2,912.54 at time of writing) and the expectation for Ethereum's passage to Proof of Stake (PoS) through The Merge, which is still slated for later this year. It's also likely that most customers who still haven't bought into the latest generation of GPUs from either AMD or NVIDIA are waiting for the release of Intel's competing Arc Alchemist discrete GPUs, not to mention AMD's mid-year RX 6*50 refresh and NVIDIA's next-generation graphics solutions. An exploding ETH price might bring GPU prices back up again; but until then, and at the rate prices are seemingly (at least locally) falling, it seems that consumers might finally be able to purchase GPUs at MSRP sometime after May.

ID-COOLING today announced IS-47S 47 mm height low profile CPU air cooler. At a total height including the fan of 47 mm, this cooler would be a good choice for your A4 cases. Designed with an overall dimension of 100x93x47mm, it has no conflict of the RAM or PCI-E slots. The heatsink is solid built with a pure copper base and 4 heatpipes and massive aluminium fins. The heatsink itself is measured at 35 mm height. Adding a powerful 12 mm PWM fan, this cooler is capable of handling processors with a maximum TDP of 95 W. In terms of mounting kit, two separate backplates are provided in the box for Intel and AMD respectively. The sockets list includes Intel LGA1700/1200/1151/1150/1155/1156 and AMD AM4.

The bundled thermal grease is named FROST X25, which has a thermal conductivity of 10.5 W/m-K.

NVIDIA at its Annual Investor Day announced that the company's coffers are in better shape than ever. And while the company has many baskets from which to pull proverbial profits, the company's gaming division remains its biggest source of income. On its presentation, NVIDIA clarified that gamers are spending on average $300 extra per desktop Ampere product compared to previous graphics product generations. That fact, the company says, has resulted in an average increase in product ASP (Average Selling Price) to the tune of 13% per year in the last five years.

Paired with the increase in graphics products' ASP (meaning NVIDIA brings in more money per sold graphics card) is an increase in the number of graphics cards shipped to customers - at a rate of 11% more graphics cards being sold annually. So NVIDIA is not only selling more expensive graphics cards; they're selling more of them as well. The company expects its financial results to keep steadily improving, even as more and more gamers join the fold. According to the company, the last five-year period saw an average of 50 million additional gamers entering the market per year - and there's no expectation of that figure slowing down.

Kyle Bennett, head of HardOCP, and part of this Industry for several decades has posted an interesting editorial yesterday. While I don't agree with everything, he's making great points that are worth considering. The editorial begins with how and why GPU vendors will abolish the MSRP, because it's bringing nothing but bad press to them. No MSRP would also mean additional flexibility in pricing things—just set the price dynamically—no doubt that also helps to maximize profits.

I am sure both AMD and NVIDIA have marketing managers sitting around watching reviewer after reviewer slamming its company for "fake MSRP" and are now thinking about a solution to that.

NVIDIA's RTX 3090 Ti is hot on the presses, and while actual product availability is anyone's guess, the card has already been made available for order (in extremely limited quantities, as one might expect). That said, the lack of a clear pricing messaging from NVIDIA seems to have left the door open for truly egregious pricing practices, which are likely added to at every step of the supply chain from the green team's AIB (add-in-board) partners and their custom RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards. Case in point: European, Swiss retailer Top Preise has started listing the latest NVIDIA halo card at a cool, not at all jaw-dropping average of €3,600 ($4,000). This is easily the highest-ever-pricing practiced on a consumer-level graphics card, so if anything, 2022 seems to have at least brought us that particular record-setting. Of course, pricing of a single retailer doesn't prove a pricing trend; but the fact that the cards are priced at untidy values does seem to indicate these aren't placeholder values.

This is much the case as has happened with NVIDIA's recent launch of the RTX 3080 12 GB - that card too didn't receive public MSRP guidance from NVIDIA, leaving its board partners - and retailers - to carve whatever pricing philosophy they deem adequate, considering the current state of the market, expected demand for NVIDIA's latest and greatest, and, of course, additional profits. Considering how the RTX 3080 12 GB has been found in store shelves for around $1,700 (remember the original MSRP for the RTX 3080 8 GB was set at $699), an upgrade to the RTX 3090 Ti would be a very expensive, $2,300 proposition for a relatively small performance improvement.

DeepCool, a global brand in designing and manufacturing high-performance computer components for enthusiasts worldwide, announces the CK SERIES Mid-Tower Cases, which consists the CK500, CK500WH, CK560 and CK560WH. Available in black and white, all cases deliver a balance of airflow, silent performance and exceptional cooling for the modern-day builder.

The CK SERIES deliver a no-nonsense approach to a clean, sleek computer chassis design. For Minimalist Builders who appreciate the CK500 and CK500WH minimal solid front panel can be rest assured that airflow performance is not hindered thanks to enlarged ventilation outlets throughout the front, top, and rear panels for additional air movement. For Builders that insist for even more airflow, the CK560 and CK560WH feature a unique cross-hair patterned steel front panel. All cases offer a clean aesthetic and fits a modern day look while being feature-packed for additional hardware expansion and upgrades.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), is kicking off 2022 with new Razer Blade gaming laptop models including the Razer Blade 14, Razer Blade 15, and Razer Blade 17. The world's fastest laptops for gamers and creators are equipped with the recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs, up to an RTX 3080 Ti, making the new Blades better than ever, now shipping with Windows 11. All new Razer Blade gaming laptops now also include groundbreaking DDR5 memory, providing blistering clock speeds up to 4800 MHz, an increase in frequency by up to 50% compared to the previous generation.

"The Razer Blade series continues to be the best gaming laptop by providing desktop-class performance on-the-go," says Travis Furst, Senior Director of Razer's Systems business unit. "Additionally, we've enabled creators to work anywhere with gorgeous displays, available NVIDIA Studio drivers, and up to 14-Core CPUs. Users will have the ability to choose any model or configuration that best fits their gaming or creating needs, while getting the latest and greatest in graphics, memory and processing technology."

NVIDIA's latest attempt to mitigate the continued graphics card supply issues with the relaunch of the RTX 2060 in a 12 GB flavor seems to be mostly vapor - for a little while longer, at least. That the new, 12 GB cards' launch wasn't even met with an official NVIDIA MSRP was enough to get some eyebrows raised by itself; and the almost complete lack of availability of any of these partner-only cards after the launch proper only adds insult to injury.

According to PC Gamer, citing an NVIDIA spokesperson, actual card production ramp will happen "(...) starting the end of December and early January". Even when that happens, would-be buyers of RTX 2060 12 GB cards will still have to contend with the absolute lack of pricing structure in the current market. the absence of an MSRP essentially gives the entire NVIDIA supply chain a way to operate and earn profits in the dark, setting their own pricing solely according to mechanisms of supply and demand. NVIDIA itself, AIB partners, distributors and retailers - all of them can seemingly add whatever margin they feel the market demand will sustain. It doesn't seem that the third life of NVIDIA's RTX 2060 12 GB will do much to improve the actual situation for consumers - but retailers can now sell three-year-old technology at whatever pricing the market determines.

Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, has said in a Tweet that the company's flagship laptop model will receive a price increase due to increased component costs. According to previous reports, the whole supply chain is seeing an increasing amount of pressure in the form of demand and supply's inability to satisfy it. Manufacturing costs have also risen, resulting in more expensive products that consumers end up buying. For a while now, graphics cards have been very hard to obtain, and their selling price is way higher than their launch MSRP target.

According to the Razer CEO, as they reviewed the company lineup of laptops, it appears that their Razer Blade model for 2022 will receive a significant price bump. This is the result of "significant increases in component costs etc.," which means that the end product will absorb those increases. We are left to wonder if all high-performance laptop makers like MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE, etc., will follow Razer and their decision to increase the price point.

Unexpected events tend to happen in the world of graphics cards, and today seems like no exception. According to the public announcement on EVGA forums, a truck delivery full of the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards got stolen. The truck was going on its route from San Francisco to the EVGA Southern California distribution center. Inside the vehicle, countless GPUs were ranging in MSRP from $329.99 up to $1959.99. However, the company doesn't specify how many GPUs are now missing. It is important to note that any sale of these stolen GPUs is considered a felony, and if you have any information regarding this, please get in touch with EVGA at stopRTX30theft@evga.com email address.Here is the full announcement from EVGA's forum:

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and Peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces a new series of solid state drives (SSD), the XPG ATOM series, geared toward creators of different needs and budgets. They include the XPG ATOM 30, 40, and 50.

The ATOM 30 and 40 utilize PCIe Gen3x4 and NVMe 1.3 to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,500/2,000 and 3,500/3,000 MB per second, respectively, to give creators the performance they need to create without limitations. Their M.2 2280 specifications support the latest Intel and AMD platforms for creating on the latest PCs, including desktop and laptops. For users seeking a further boost, the ATOM 50 takes advantage of PCIe Gen4 x4 and NVMe 1.4 to offer read and write speeds of up to 5, 000/4,500 MB per second.

Intel's Arc Alchemist lineup of graphics cards, based on Xe-HPG GPU configuration, is nearing the launch. With the current situation with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs outputting graphics card prices over the default MSRP, we wonder how Intel would place pricing of its upcoming GPUs and fit inside the market. And today, we got the first round of speculations based on Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU giveaway called Xe-HPG Scavenger Hunt. There are two principal bundles: one worth $900 that includes Intel Arc merchandise, Xbox Game Pass PC for six months, Intel Premium Arc Alchemist graphics card, and one worth $700 that consists of three months of Xbox Game Pass PC, Intel Arc merchandise, and Intel Performance Arc Alchemist graphics card.

According to some preliminary calculations from Tom's Hardware, we assume that with the $900 bundle containing one Premium Arc Alchemist GPU and other prizes, the card will cost as much as $825 when all things get removed. Going down the ladder, Intel has paired a bundle worth $700 with a Performance Arc GPU, which is roughly worth $650 on its own. It indicates that the two Intel Performance and Premium Arch Alchemist graphics cards are respectfully worth $650 and $825. What will the final pricing look like? We don't know. However, we assume that it could be very similar to this. For more information we have to wait for the official launch.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing another long-awaited addition to the EK Quantum Line. The EK-Quantum Vector TRIO RTX 3080/3090 active backplate is made to complement the existing EK-Quantum Vector TRIO RTX 3080/3090 water blocks and actively cool the backside of MSI TRIO and SUPRIM GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs.

EK-Quantum Vector TRIO RTX 3080/3090 Active Backplate links the water block and active backplate with a new terminal, which replaces the stock terminal that comes with your water block. This way, the whole enclosure requires only one inlet and one outlet, removing unnecessary additional tubing and reducing clutter. It is the ultimate aesthetic and performance solution that finds your GPU sandwiched between two water blocks, allowing maximum cooling.

Today, we got another report about the potential problems with motherboards and graphics cards. At the moment of writing, the global supply chain of electronics is still under the shortage caused by the lack of sufficient supply of semiconductors and some other electronic components that cannot meet demand. There is a reported scarcity of copper and copper-clad laminates (CCLs), used as a base plate for manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCBs) that power every electronics product currently available. According to DigiTimes, the costs of copper foils used to make these CCLs are rising, putting significant pressure on motherboard and GPU makers to increase their price quotes.

As the materials used to create motherboards and GPUs are experiencing rising costs, that usually results in two types of actions taken by the manufacturer: a price increase or a reduced profit margin of the product. Copper pricing has risen by 35% since Q4 2020, so price growth is inevitable. With the increased MSRP representing a common trend in the computer industry for the past period, it could very easily translate into manufacturers boosting their pricing structure. That means that we, as consumers, could see higher prices of motherboards and graphics cards, especially those models with PCBs made out of high amount of copper layers.

[Editor's note: We have published the review of HYTE Revolt 3 Case here.]

HYTE, the new PC components and lifestyle brand of iBUYPOWER, a leading manufacturer of high-performance custom gaming PCs, today released its premier product, the Revolt 3 Mini-ITX PC case. Previously announced during CES 2021 as the Revolt 3 MK3, the Revolt 3 was designed with careful consideration for DIY PC enthusiasts, gamers, and creators alike.

"iBUYPOWER is excited to introduce its new sub-brand, HYTE, to our community with its very first product, the Revolt 3" said Darren Su, Executive Vice President of iBUYPOWER. "With over 20 years of experience as a systems integrator we felt like we had a unique perspective to bring to the table when developing PC Components. We approached the Revolt 3 with the goal of designing a case with the freedom and flexibility that would allow the use of a wide range of components without imposing performance restrictions based on the size of the case."