The PC industry is facing some serious headwinds. Whether it’s CPU or GPU sales or systems shipped, the numbers are historically low. Despite this situation, prices for hardware have still remained curiously high. It’s been reported that manufacturers are “under-shipping” products, letting AMD, Intel, and Nvidia keep prices high and volume low. However, something changed this week because Best Buy took a blowtorch to that model. In what can only be described as a fire sale, Best Buy cut prices so drastically for Nvidia RTX 30-series GPUs they sounded like typos. The sale is over now, but this leads us to wonder what was the catalyst for such a drastic move.
Best Buy is the exclusive outlet for Nvidia Founder Edition GPUs. For some reason, it decided to hold a “clearance sale” on select 30-series GPUs, which include the RTX 3070, 3080 10GB, 3080 Ti, and 3090 Ti. The RTX 3060 Ti and 3070 Ti were unaffected by the sale, possibly due to non-existent inventory. The fire sale by Best Buy proved the old adage that if you adjust the price enough, people will buy. The sale was so rapid that the stock depleted almost instantly as word spread online.
The prices were outrageously good, which isn’t something we’ve said about a GPU price in years. For example, the RTX 3080 10GB was listed at $419.99. We feel the need to add several exclamation points here because we’re so shocked by that price. That’s $280 off its MSRP of $699.99. It’s also less expensive than the RTX 3070 Ti, which sells for $599. This GPU was selling for double that price during the pandemic. It was scalper pricing, sure, but we vividly recall seeing it sell for $1,300 or so on Craigslist.
Next up is the RTX 3070, which normally sells for $499. Best Buy had it on offer for just $299, if you can believe that. That card is selling right now for between $500 and $600 online, so this is probably the most outrageous price it briefly allowed.
Moving up the stack, we come to the RTX 3080 Ti with 12GB of memory. This was always an odd duck of a GPU that was too close to the RTX 3090 in performance to stand out. However, it had its price slashed by $180, down to $719.99. That put it on par with lower-end GPUs like the RTX 3070 Ti, so again a stellar deal.
The final card on offer was the former Ampere flagship, the RTX 3090 Ti. We remember when this GPU launched and sold for over $2,000. EVGA’s liquid-cooled version sold for a ridiculous $2,500 at the time. Now just seven months later, Best Buy offered it for $879.99–$220 off its MSRP. 
Not surprisingly, Best Buy’s clearance sale was a smashing success. It seems like it sold all of the current inventory it had, as we can’t even find the pages for the GPUs that were on sale. Clicking older links to them shows an error page, as in the SKU’s product page no longer exists. Here’s the link to the RTX 3080 page as an example. It’s the same for the other three GPUs, so it looks like we might never see them for sale ever again.
It’s a good sign that Best Buy felt it needed to take drastic action to clear the channel of old inventory. That can only mean new hardware is incoming, likely in the same price categories as the cards it slashed prices. That could mean an RTX 4060 and an RTX 4070 GPU are in the pipeline. However, with the RTX 4070 Ti selling for $799, we’re guessing the “midrange” GPUs will now be around $500.
This is the first time we’ve seen a retailer as big as Best Buy offer such radical pricing. Obviously, its plan worked, though many overpriced partner cards are still in the channel. Maybe they’ll join in the clearance sale movement soon.
Now read:
- First Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile Benchmarks Show Stunning Improvements
- CES 2023: Nvidia Launches RTX 4070 Ti, Ada Lovelace Mobile, GeForce Now With RTX 4080
- Chrome and Edge Browsers to Get Nvidia RTX AI Video Upscaling (Updated)
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