When the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti was first released, I didn't quite understand the controversies surrounding it. It was the "unlaunched" 12GB RTX 4080, yes, but I didn't get why people were so up in arms about it. After all, it'll still give you solid in-game performance at $100 less than the 12GB 4080 was going to. What's there to really be that mad about?
After reviewing both its biggest rivals, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT, in recent weeks, I can now see where people's frustrations truly lie. Any annoyances probably aren't, and shouldn't, be directly to do with the power of this GPU alone, even if it's far from perfect. In fact, annoyances should be about the fact that the 4070 Ti is going to enable Nvidia to continue overcharging gamers for the best graphics cards, and milk its current market position for all its worth.
The price of GPUs is still recovering after years of turmoil. Chip shortages are over, and thankfully, so are the worst days of crypto scalpers throwing a spanner in the works. That said, prices are still yet to come close to actual MSRPs, and what the 4070 Ti has shown me is that Nvidia is quite happy for that to be the case. After all, that's all an MSRP really is these days - a "suggested" retail price and nothing more. Nvidia knows full well that when third-party brands and retailers get a hold of things, GPUs will actually cost a lot more.
