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4090 now or wait
Alright so 4K OLED got me like omg wow so I'm considering selling my 4070Ti and buying a 4090. I know my 4070ti can technically handle 4k but not comfortably like it can 1440p. And, well, it's undeniably a big upgrade.
It's getting easier to find a 4090 FE for MSRP or lower which is both a good thing and also a bad sign for anyone buying now. It means there will be more and they will get cheaper. The question is how much cheaper...
I know it has been popular to dog on the price of the 4090 (or 40xx series in general) and it is undeniably expensive, but as far as gaming goes it is almost double the performance of a 3090 in Time Spy for $100 more MSRP. Also, a disturbing number of people paid well over MSRP (though mining at the time certainly helped offset the cost).
Anyway, I digress, the price is what it is. With current trends and demand for AI work, there's no way the 5090 is going to be cheaper than the 4090. The question is how much more and how much of a performance boost will it be. If you're a cynic, you might say the price to performance dollar increase will be 1:1. I seriously doubt that (don't think that's ever happened) but the closer it is to 1:1, theoretically the higher the resale value of a 4090 would be. But of course the 5090 will have other exclusive features and more VRAM.
Realistically we won't see the 5090 until next year and they will stay out of stock for months again, so the 4090 will still be valuable but it will obviously drop some.
Ultimately I know it just boils down to do you need/want it now, I just wonder if I'm missing anything. This would be an easier decision if we didn't just get a huge drop of amazing 4k OLED monitors. But maybe I really do just keep the 4070Ti and manage settings until the 5090.
Comments Section
Do you need the performance now or are you happy and can you wait and hope to get a 5090. We cant exactly answer for you
This should be pinned to every post in this sub
I know it doesn’t apply directly to your situation but it might help your line of thinking. I just bought a 4080 Super FE for msrp yesterday. I recently switched to a 4K 42” C3 OLED and have gotten back into gaming. Rebuilt my PC with a 14900k as well and my 3070 OC wasn’t cutting it.
To me I got tired of thinking about it. It will almost certainly be Feb-March by the time I’d legitimately get one in stock anyway as the bots will buying them all up instantly worldwide the first few months. Add to that a 10-50% improvement and a hefty price tag, and it’s just not a big enough benefit vs holding out nearly a full year and gaming on garbage frame rates in 4K. Plus when you factor in resale value, the Ti & Super variants always hold their value and demand the longest. (IE no one even talks about a 1080, it’s the 1080 Ti that will be remembered). So even still, I’ll wait until the 5080 Ti Super comes out instead.
This is honestly the way to go (slightly biased), but you’re saving over 600 bucks and not really losing a whole lot of performance. Buy a 5090 or 5080 when those launch if the 4080/4080S isn’t cutting it. Spending 1600 on a 4090 at this point isn’t a great move IMO
Wait for 5090 as you have an ok setup. Buying this late in the cycle ends up feeling like a bit of a con. Been there more than once.
At this point spending top tier money gets you a top tier card for 6-7 months until it is superseded by something cheaper with new/improved features making your card mid range. At least when you spend top tier money at the beginning of a generation you get 2 years of owning a top tier card.
I also won’t even be a little bit surprised if nVidia releases the 5090 for $1999 USD. And that’s on the conservative end. Their main market is data centre rendering, so it’s a much smarter business decision to increase the prices and sell less to free up production chips & production lines for that as demand will be through the roof on the data centre end. I could see them even charging $2499 for the 5090 but it’s anyone’s guess what it will be.
Even at 1700 bucks it was impossible to get them from the major retailers like Best Buy.
They could easily charge well over 2k for them. People will just payment plan them or whatever and they'll still sell out as some "rationalized 3 year purchase = 800/yr for my main hobby."
It's probably not the healthiest-looking thing for the "gaming industry" to have the flagship be over 2 grand, but leather jacket man doesn't care.
You change your GPU only when GTA VI gets released ;)
I just bought a 4090 FE to pair with my 4K OLED. I don't care if the 5090 comes out within the next 12 months as I just don't need more than what 4090 offers. I'm able to run everything at 4k max settings very comfortably, even with path tracing thanks to DLSS. I'm sure 5090 will be an upgrade, but no way it will be as substantial as 3090 to 4090.
4090 will hold its value well due to the high ML/workstation performance and high VRAM. I wouldn't feel bad about buying one now.
When I do stuff like this (upgrading within a generation) I tend to buy used cards too which helps make the upgrade hurt less. You can save the tax and a couple hundred dollars by looking for a used 4090, of course doing your due diligence to ensure it's like-new.
I think if you sell your 4070ti and buy a used 4090 it's a reasonable thing to do. All assuming this is all pretty inconsequential to your personal financial situation.