Super-expensive RTX 4090 has made it to the top GPUs on Steam

Nvidia's most expensive card is the best-selling one?

➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: The rise of the RTX 4090

• 📈 RTX 4090 now makes up for 0.23% of GPUs among Steam users

• 👀 The most expensive GPU is outranking every other current-gen GPU

• 🤔 Will we keep seeing super-expensive graphics cards this gen?

The Nvidia RTX 4090 hit store shelves back in October 2020, but it’s already among the most popular GPUs on the market, even after the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti came out at lower prices.

The graphics card is the first of this generation of the best GPUs – including the Radeon RX 7900 series – to make it onto the Steam Hardware Survey, showing up with in 0.23% of the best gaming PCs on Steam. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s already outpaced the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, AMD’s big last-generation flagship.

It could just be that the RTX 4090 is the current-gen GPU that’s been out the longest, but with every card costing close to or more than $1,000, it could be that folks looking to buy an expensive GPU are just springing for the one with the best performance. Because the gap between the RTX 4090 and the slightly-less-expensive RTX 4080 is quite significant.

We’ll have to wait and see if the other Ada Lovelace GPUs will eventually appear on Steam’s top GPU list, but with AMD withholding stock of its current-gen offerings to keep prices high, according to a report from Seeking Alpha; It doesn’t seem like the popularity of Nvidia’s most expensive card is going to wane.

However, with rumors of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti looming on the horizon, we may see a mid-range card make it to market soon.

The era of expensive GPUs?

I’ve already went on at length about how graphics cards are overpriced these days, but I’m surprised that the halo Nvidia product is the only one that gamers seem particularly interested in. It’s true that the Nvidia RTX 4090 delivers a better value than the RTX 4080 – I said as much in my review – but it’s shocking that the RTX 4090 has been as successful as it’s been.

Not to overstate things, though: the RTX 4090 is only accounting for 0.23% of graphics cards among Steam users, which means it’s way outranked in popularity by cards like the RTX 3060, which ranks in at 3.54% of Steam users. That’s an order of magnitude more popular.

It seems like Nvidia has realized the popularity of its older cards, too. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is now two generations old, but it’s still readily available on Newegg, likewise with the budget picks from four years ago, like the GTX 1660 Super.

Not so long ago, Nvidia would introduce a new line of graphics cards, then immediately discontinue its older stock. But it seems like the company is justifying the high prices of the new hotness by keeping its older cards in stock. I’m not really a fan of this, but it looks like the way to build a budget gaming PC is to use last year’s tech, rather than get in on the improvements Nvidia has made with its Ada Lovelace architecture.

Hey at least that way you won’t have to use the controversial power connector. But it’s still a shame that most people are going to essentially have to wait for the RTX 4070 Ti to reach its hand-me-down phase to actually afford it.