The series was announced on September 20, 2022, at the GPU Technology Conference, and launched on October 12, 2022, starting with its flagship model, the RTX 4090.

[14] In August 2024, Nvidia, citing the need "to improve supply and availability", introduced a variant of the RTX 4070 card with GDDR6 running at 20Gbps while all the other specs remain the same.

[15][16] When the 12GB variant of the RTX 4080 was announced, numerous publications, prominent YouTubers, reviewers, and the community criticized Nvidia for marketing it as an RTX 4080, given the equivalent performance of previous XX80-class cards when compared with other cards of the same series, and the large gap in specifications and performance compared to the 16GB variant.

However, unlike other examples of Nvidia GPUs with differing memory configurations within the same class which have typically been very close in processing performance, the RTX 4080 12GB uses a completely different processing unit and memory architecture: the 4080 12GB would use the AD104 die, which features 27% fewer CUDA cores than the 16GB variant's AD103 die.

[67] Despite these claims of user error, a revised connector design intended to address these issues was introduced under the new name 12V-2x6.

[68] In February 2024, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall of 12VHPWR adapters made by Cablemod.

[70] It has been noted that the older 6- and 8-pin connectors had substantially larger manufacturer-specified current-carrying capacity in relation to the power limits specified by PCI SIG:[71][60] The United States Department of Commerce began enacting restrictions on the GeForce RTX 4090 for export to certain countries in 2023.

[75] Upon release, the RTX 4090's performance received praise from reviewers, with Tom's Hardware saying "it now ranks among the best graphics cards".

[83] A review by PC Gamer gave it 83/100, calling it "a hell of an introduction to the sort of extreme performance Ada can deliver when given a long leash".

[84] Tom Warren in a review for The Verge said that the RTX 4090 is "a beast of a graphics card that marks a new era for PC gaming".

[83] Aftermarket AIB RTX 4090 variants received criticism in particular for their massive cooler sizes with some models being 4 PCIe slots tall.

[91][92] YouTube reviewer JayzTwoCents showed an Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 model being comparable in size to an entire PlayStation 5 console.

[99] In another critique, RockPaperShotgun highlighted that AIB models can significantly exceed the base $1199 Founders Edition price, creating further value considerations.

[103] The global cost of living crisis and the RTX 4080's generational pricing increase have been suggested as major contributing factors for poor sales numbers.

Jacob Roach from Digital Trends gave the RTX 4070 Ti a 6/10, criticizing the lower memory bandwidth compared to the RTX 4080, its worse 4K performance, and the lack of a Founder's Edition model, with fears that the board partner cards would sell for over the $800 price tag, although he did praise the thermal performance and efficiency of his unit.

[105] Michael Justin Allen Sexton from PCMag reviewed the ZOTAC RTX 4070 Ti Amp Extreme Airo model, giving it a 3.5/5, criticizing the large size of the card and it being only $100 less than AMD's direct competitor, the Radeon RX 7900 XT, which comes in at $899 compared to the $799 price of the RTX 4070 Ti.

[107] At launch, Jacob Roach from Digital Trends gave the RTX 4070 a 4.5/5, praising its efficiency, the fact the Founder's Edition only took up two slots, and its good GPU performance at 1440p and 4K.

Nvidia did not send samples for review, including to big names such as Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, and Linus Tech Tips.

In a way, that sort of makes sense, as it should perform fairly similarly to the existing 8GB model, with the added benefit of more VRAM.

While Halo Infinite and Forspoken did not have poor 1% low performance at 1080p, they instead sometimes failed to load textures with the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti due to a lack of VRAM.

The RTX 4060 falls short of filling that post, offering solid generational improvements but middling competitive performance, and relying on DLSS 3 and ray tracing to find its value.