New Nvidia RTX 30 Series graphics cards – South African pricing

South African pricing for Nvidia’s powerful new GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards has been revealed.

Launched earlier this week, Nvidia claims the Ampere-based cards offer up to 2x the performance and 1.9x the power efficiency of the previous-generation RTX 20 Series.

While certain specifications had been leaked in reports before the unveiling, Nvidia had caught many by surprise with aggressive pricing, particularly for the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 cards.

The company provided the following recommended retail prices for the range:

• GeForce RTX 3070 – $499 (R8,376)
• GeForce RTX 3080 – $699 (R11,735)
• GeForce RTX 3090 – $1,499 (R25,166)

However, it appears that South Africans may not benefit as much from these prices as some would have hoped.

Local online retailer Evetech has listed pricing for ASUS and MSI’s RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090 cards.

The GPUs are listed as “coming soon”, with no confirmed availability date stated.

A total of eight RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 models are listed, while six variants of the RTX 3070 are on offer.

Big price difference

Historically, there has been a difference between South African and US GPU prices due to import and shipping costs.

The discrepancies are particularly significant this time around, however.

The entry-level RTX 3070 listed on Evetech is selling for R15,499 – 86% more expensive than the directly-converted US dollar price.

The most affordable version of the RTX 3080 is priced at R20,599, which is 76% higher than the direct dollar-to-rand price.

Gamers looking for a top-of-the-line GPU will pay between R39,499 and R46,499 for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090.

That is around 57% to 85% more expensive than the recommended retail price in the US.

The table below shows the prices of the RTX 30 series cards that will be available from Evetech.

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