As the RTX 4090 marks its fourth anniversary, PC Gamer looks back at the performance and pricing of this graphics card. The author argues that despite its steep launch price, it still meets the gaming needs of some users today.
Reported by foreign media outlet PC Gamer:
Join me in wishing the RTX 4090 a happy fourth birthday. This was NVIDIA's previous enthusiast-grade GPU, launched on October 12 four years ago with a staggering MSRP of $1,499. At the time, that price was already shocking.
But look at current prices: the cheapest RTX 5080 I could find is the ASUS Prime edition, priced at $1,640. When NVIDIA's sub-flagship GPU costs significantly more than the previous generation's flagship MSRP, it's easy to see just how far the GPU market has fallen.
The RTX 5090, the direct successor to the RTX 4090, is now nearly impossible to find. We've stopped tracking it on our GPU price tracking page because the only available units are from third-party sellers charging exorbitant prices, and we don't want to recommend these sellers. There are also rumors that NVIDIA may have stopped producing RTX 5090 chips for the consumer market, shifting the GB202 chip towards data centers and professional GPUs instead.
This makes me miss the RTX 4090. Recently, I rummaged through the PC Gamer equipment closet and found our old review sample. This GPU is large and heavy, still looking impressive even by today's standards. Its specifications hold up too: even in 2026, it remains highly competitive.
It features 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM, 76.3 billion transistors, and 16,384 CUDA cores, which is 56% more than the RTX 3090. Additionally, it has 128 shader modules, 128 ray tracing cores, and 512 Tensor cores. By today's standards, it's still a massive GPU. I know many gamers are still using it. They bit the bullet and paid the high price back then, and have been enjoying its powerful performance ever since.
If you could afford it back then, buying the RTX 4090 now looks like a pretty smart choice in hindsight. When our Dave reviewed the RTX 4090 Founder's Edition, he rightly pointed out that its price was prohibitively high. But its gaming performance also impressed him. It was also through this card that we truly experienced DLSS Frame Generation for the first time; back then, the feature was still in its early 2x version.
The GPU itself is powerful and comes with new features that help boost frame rates. For those who can accept the price, it's a graphics card that will remain highly capable for many years to come.
The current RTX 5080 costs more yet offers weaker raw performance. Although it supports multi-frame generation, players seem divided on this feature. In this light, for those who could afford the RTX 4090 back then, the money was well spent.
The RTX 5090 is even more controversial. Its launch MSRP was $1,999, but retailer prices were almost immediately much higher. Even though its performance significantly surpasses the RTX 4090, the price-to-performance ratio has always been harder to justify.
Multi-frame generation has also been a point of contention for some. The RTX 5090 was launched alongside the RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 at CES 2025, and it remains the flagship representative of this technology. I remember covering the launch event with my colleagues in Las Vegas, wondering how PC gamers would react to it.
Multi-frame generation does significantly increase the number of frames displayed on screen. But I know it also intensifies the debate around "fake frames." This argument started as soon as 2x frame generation appeared. The RTX 5090 itself remains an extremely powerful GPU, but its price puts it out of reach for many gamers. Especially for those already using an RTX 4090, their current card is still very strong—why upgrade?
Perhaps this is the legacy left by the RTX 4090. The more I think about it, the more I feel it might be the last flagship GPU that made sense for average consumers to buy. It also brings to mind the phrase "future-proof." We tend to avoid using this term in our industry, and I use it here cautiously.
One thing is certain: in the foreseeable future, GPU prices don't look like they'll improve much. The RTX 60 series is likely still some time away. I can only imagine how outrageous the price will be for the future equivalent of an RTX 6090, how many Tensor cores it will pack, what new tricks multi-frame generation will pull, not to mention DLSS 5.
At least from NVIDIA's perspective, neural rendering is the future. If I had to guess, I'd say they will add more hardware to support this technology, while placing less emphasis on boosting raw performance.
The fourth anniversary of the now-legendary RTX 4090 makes me nostalgic for the days when GPUs were more straightforward: graphics cards delivered strong performance through raw graphical power, and their prices were at least somewhat affordable for those of us with modest incomes.
I know it sounds absurd to call a GPU that cost $1,499 four years ago "affordable." But GPU prices in 2026 have thrown past benchmarks into disarray, and there's little we can do about it. Anyway, raise a glass with me to the RTX 4090. For some reason, I feel we won't see another GPU like it again.