NVIDIA unveiled their flagship gaming GPU at the Game Developers Conference yesterday, and with it a seemingly reasonable price: $US699. Sure, that’s a lot, but then it quite literally is a top-of-the-line graphics card.
But if you were thinking about buying a GTX 1080 Ti in Australia, bad news. You’re going to pay a lot.
A listing for NVIDIA’s latest GPU, which has 11GB of memory and is (supposedly) 35% faster than the existing GTX 1080, has appeared on the WA/Victorian based retailer PLE Computers. They’re one of the larger retailers in Australia, so it’s not surprising that they would have a listing up this quickly. But the price might be a little surprising: $1199, basically in line with what the GTX 1080 Founders Edition GPUs cost at launch.
Kotaku Australia understands that PLE’s pricing is on the low end of what most Australian retailers will charge. A source has told us that most places will charge between $1199 and $1299 – the same as when the GTX 1080 launched.
The GTX 1080 Ti goes live overseas next week, so you can expect it to be available locally very soon. I’ll do a round-up next week for those lucky enough to have $1200 or more saved away for such a beast of a card. Watch Dogs 2 in 5K does sound pretty damn good, after all.
Comments
50 responses to “If You Were Thinking About Buying A GTX 1080 Ti, Think Again”
I wish i had the money for one but by the time i save up the 1180Ti would be out.
2080, not 1180… they are calling the next gen 20xx,30xx etc
I still want one but just imagining the 3rd party prices makes me sad
PLE is based in WA.
Its a shame about the price though, hopefully they come down to sub 1k once the non reference models are out.
They do have a Victorian store as well, but I’ve updated the article to reflect their WA presence. Thanks.
Incorrect. They also have stores in Victoria.
This price tag is a surprise? I was expecting around $1200+ myself in Australia.
Never buy card on launch in Australia. We don’t get any rrp price from local distributor and they just import a few and sell them overpriced.
Just buy it direct from amazon or newegg
Considering this fault is done every time, I was hoping someone at Kotaku or Gizmodo would have learnt by now.
US RRP does NOT include their sales tax as it varies from state to state. You need to add 10% for our sales tax, so that becomes Au $1,004.21. The you need to add 5% import duty, so we are up to Au $1,054.42 as the direct comparison price right now. We’re at 3 month highs for the currency right now, if we take the low point over the last 3 months it is Au $1,126.94. So you can see why they need to price it where it is as a baseline to cover themselves against currency fluctuation, although that said, I would have expected Au $1,100.00
Edited for sphellings.
That sounds like a very reasonable breakdown of the price increase….something I expect from journalists writing about this topic, as opposed to buried in the comment section…
SHIT! Can I send you an award or a medal or something. I was actually just about to state something similar until I read your comment. This is something that always bothers me with “Oh but we are paying 25% more than the US” that appears in all these articles. Your breakdown is perfect.
No sane company would use the day to day exchange rate for pricing, they would use the mean or median exchange rate based on the last 3-6 months.
US Sales tax varies from 0% to 9.46%, depending on State (don’t buy stuff in Tennessee)
So while $1199 is higher, it is not a whole heap higher once you take that into account. Business need to account for other costs of doing business also which is added into the price.
So thank you again for putting it into perspective
Toss in that it is more expensive to sell here (wages, rent, things like that) then $1200 seems even more reasonable.
Other way around with FX. Distributors will have forward exchange contracts in place with rates locked in over 30/60/90/180 days (and longer) into the future. Means they can order stock now and regardless of volatility in the market they minimise their exposure to any potential losses (also works for seller in opposite direction, minimises losses when rates move in buyers favour).
🙂
This is a good breakdown. I think it’s worth adding that while the figures you give are useful for figuring out how much a retailer here would charge, if you import yourself you don’t have to pay US sales tax or import duties, and if the combined value of item plus shipping comes under $1000 AUD then you don’t have to pay GST either (until June 30, at least).
Yeah when I read the title, I thought great its going to be more than what I expected it to be ($1200) – but then after I read it, I was like what?
if your going to break it down you also need to note that not every state in the US has a sales tax and not all sales taxes are the same with some states having higher sales taxes than others
Fair point.
Please update your article to reflect at least part of this. People are still reading this and taking your pricing point as relevant, when it’s actually quite misleading.
Fixed! Sorry for not replying earlier.
Personally, I don’t think that is fixed, maybe even exacerbates the issue as now you have no conversion showing, just the US price vs Aus price, with no point as to how one should be different form the other. You have effectively widened the gap.
I don’t think I’ve effectively widened the gap at all, and I’m trying (as always) to be open to suggestions and criticism. But let me know what you think should have been done and I’ll keep it in mind the next time this occurs.
I say effectively widening, because you have now allowed for people who will not only do the same fault you originally did (not allowing for taxes and duties), but now also those that aren’t capable of even thinking about a currency conversion, so they see $699 vs $1200.
What would be ideal is listing the US as mentioned that is ex tax, and comparing to Aus with tax and relevant duty.
Becomes
This gives a fair comparison, and you are misleading no one. Your article is all about the price of the item, hence being accurate and thorough about the pricing detail becomes vital.
And American sales taxes should affect the profit margin of a Taiwanese product forcing an inflated price why?
I called out Umart on this yesterday when they put a post on their facebook page that they were taking pre-orders. Yesterday when I looked, the exchange made it come out to $912, and even if you add GST, that’s only a couple of $ over $1000.
Asked them if that price was set in stone, or if it was just a temp thing until they actually get stock, but unsurprisingly, they haven’t responded. A $200-$300 markup over a retail price is just bullshit. There’s no way in hell they’ll be paying $900 for a card wholesale.
Yeah but they also need to make a profit to stay in business. They’re consistently one of the cheapest in the country so I think you’re calling the wrong business out in this case.
See above for a more detailed breakdown, but because of how the dollar fluctuates, you’ll never see the daily exchange rate used to price something in an Australian store.
They will always use something lower, and the lowpoint of the last 3 months (a fairly common basis for shelf prices of imports) would bump that $900+GST to a fair bit over $1100. Then our higher costs of business (wages, rent, etc) would add a little more, putting it well into the range of $1200. Its not a $200-$300 markup, its just a reflection of the issues with imports.
I bought a GTX1070 in August, and I couldn’t be happier with it. In all honesty, if you’re going for an upgrade from an older card like I did – go for a 1070. 🙂
This. I just bought one for $520 AUD from Newegg. Total bargain.
I’m more than happy to stick with my 1080 GTX. I tend to only purchase graphics cards every 3-5yrs which is why i don’t mind spending a bit extra on a high end one at the time. Granted I’m still using a 1920×1080 screen, my card has had no trouble with anything I’ve thrown at it.
I doubt I’d invest in a 4k screen until there more higher refresh rate options around anyway, which at this rate would potentially coinside with my next graphics card upgrade down the track.
Out of curiosity what do you consider the refresh rate you require?
I have a 1080 and they really struggle with 4K screens. Overkill for 1080P though 🙂
It depends depends on the game and refresh rate. I have a beefy overclocked, water cooled gtx1080 and a 120Hz 1080p monitor. Deus Ex Mankind Divided sits in the 60(ish)FPS mark and flogs my GPU like crazy. If all games never dropped below 144FPS on 1x GTX1080 than it would be overkill on a 1080p monitor.
Yep. Id take 1080p @120-144Hz anyday over 4k at a lousy 60Hz. Once you get to play games at 120FPS it is hard to even think about being gimped back to 60fps just for extre visual fidelity. It would be some many years before both a 4K screen that has a 120hHz refresh rate and a GPU that could even go near the 120FPS mark on 4k. I doubt even the GTX1080Ti could get a steady 120FPS on modern games. Maybe 2 of them in SLI may but that is thousands and also requires a mobo with 2x 16 lane PCIe slots and those mobos aren’t cheap either. an X-99 mobo may do it and is over $500.00AUD
I can’t do 1080p anymore. Well I could, but once I was 1440p it was like being bumped up to business class.
I play the witcher 3 pretty much full maxed except for shadows and it hovers around 70 and I find that really playable.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided is just a beast. My rig really struggles on it as well but I don’t really like the game so i uninstalled after finishing it.
I’m really happy with the card though. It’ll get at least 3 yrs on my rig I think. Not even that annoyed about the new cards being released, I made my choice at a price I could justify and I’m good with that.
It is one of the great pleasures in life to have a decent rig. It’s really great when it just works and plows through demanding games. I run Crysis 3 with almost everything maxed as well just to marvel at how it looks. As long as it doesn’t go below 60 it looks really smooth to me.
This is what annoys me with all the global market, free trade bullshit. It means nothing when prices are set locally and for Australia tends to be price gouging us.
The price isn’t that surprising really… the GTX590 I had up until 14 months ago cost me roughly $1000 at cost price for the computer shop I was working in at the time. RRP was around $1200 if I remember correctly.
I’m done spending anywhere near that much on a video card though. I got 4 years out of the 590, which was good but it started to really show its age after 2-3 years, mostly due to its low memory (the advertised 3GB was effectively halved to 1.5GB on account of it being a dual core). Far better to spend half as much and upgrade every 2 years instead.
I had a 780ti which was great for 2.5 years but wanted to make sure I kept up with new titles. I decided I’d invest in a 1070 (70)series.
I’ve noticed Nvidia performance model is the 70s have the previous years 80ti power. I’ll keep this for three years and go from there.
As others have said, forget local stores, import direct from Amazon. I did this for my 1080FTW in September last year, and while it took 3-4 weeks to get here, I ended up saving almost $300 off the local price.
Here’s the listing btw, you can see that they’re still sold directly from Amazon, not by a third party seller;
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-08G-P4-6286-KR/dp/B01GAI64GO
Same!
It’s almost like buying new technology right on release is a bad idea!
Surely they’re going to have to keep the price lower than buying two 1080’s right? Especially since the 1080s should come down in price once the TI model’s are released.
Anyway, I’ll keep plugging away with the 780 for now – at least until VR finally entices me to fork over some dough.
ahhh my Titan XM has lasted ages….. it still blares away… if you get the high end card it will deffo last 4 years
im upgrading next generation not pascal, maybe not highest end card tho… i do like midrange better xx70 seems legit good value everytime I get one,,,, must be almost on my 10th graphics card now
I think I still have my old 3dfx Voodoo 2 in storage somewhere. Equal performance with Nvidia’s Riva TNT but better in SLI (scan-leave interface, the original SLI, very different to the scalable link interface used today).
You know, I might try to put together a 1998 computer just to give that Voodoo a home. Windows 98, Pentium II 400MHz, 64MB of PC100 RAM. Hell, I might even be able to find a 17 inch 1024×768 CRT to plug in too. And an IBM Model M keyboard I was allowed to take home from my first software development job. Yeah, this could be a fun project.
Ain’t nothing wrong with that. I keep old Macs running at home.
Sometimes, I just want to be left alone so I boot them up and play some old classic Myst-style games until my mood improves.
If you going to give your old card a home, puts some games there just to take it for a spin.
Oh for sure, if I build this PC it’ll definitely be used for period-appropriate games.
Hehehehe. Or try and get newer games to run on the Voodoo, 😛
Would love to see Doom (2016) running on a Voodoo even if the graphics look cell shaded.
Sadly we gave our 200mhz pentium and pure 3dfx to the local primary school when we upgraded
Aww. They probably threw it out too, no appreciation for old hardware!
Reading your post was like watching porn for me. So hot! You gotta do it!
Considering the Gigabyte Xtreme GTX1080 Waterforce card I got in march 2017 cost me $1,199.00 at MSY ($1,579.00 at some retailers), and that price hasn’t yet dropped I would be surprised if the 1080ti card was any less than $2,000.00AUD.
I’d most likely pay my friend in Florida to buy the GTX1080Ti for $699.00USD and have it shipped from Miami to Adelaide.
The only problem that springs to mind is, that Customs could seize it as I am purchasing it at a price not legal for my region and having it shipped privately to bypass regional price restrictions & taxes, so I could also be hit by the ATO for evading the taxes (GST, Import tarrif and, of course OzTax) which is a federal criminal offence with harsh fines combined with a lenghty custodial sentence (that’s longer than I would get for a violent crime). If that happened my dough is done, I don’t get the card and I am also in legal hot water with the ATO, and could be tallying scratches on a prison cell wall for a long time. The government always loves to make an example of someone that dodges even 1 cent of tax. So that idea is one hell of a gamble to consider and a gamble I would NOT like to lose.
But I am Australian and Aussies are known world-wide for being gamblers……….