Ummm they very much unlaunched it do you not remember the headlines?
Okay, I hadn't realized the rename happened after the official announcement. I thought the 12 GB model had only been rumored, up to that point. It definitely happened before the first-sale date, at least. There are no RTX 4080 (12 GB) cards in the wild, as far as I'm aware.
Yeah this pretty much sums it up. I am not thrilled as a gamer but at least so far its nothing like the crypto boom as far as scalpers go. High prices right now are just a casualty of of high msrps sadly. Nvidia got out of touch with gamers.
As long as their new generation provides significantly better perf/$ than the previous generation, I don't see why it matters where the top-end card is priced at.
I mean, how many people actually cared, when they launched their Titan RTX at $2500? It was priced
so far beyond the 2080 Ti that most gamers just ignored it. It was basically aimed at folks doing deep learning.
I think the naming/numbering is part of the problem. There are certain people who have an idea in their head that they want to buy a x080 card, and get upset if it's too expensive. If they had:
1. Changed their entire naming scheme.
2. Done a near-simultaneous launch of all product tiers (unrealistic, but I can dream...)
...then I think it would've quelled at least
some of the outrage.