Packaging

With the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, I was surprised at the huge box that Nvidia went with but loved that it made the card feel special and unique. I assumed when we went down to the RTX 4080 they would save the space in shipping and the weight (the card and box together are 14 pounds, twice the weight of the card and box for the 3080) but surprisingly they stuck with the same packaging. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition comes in the same large box which is blacked out and the front of the box only has the model name and the Nvidia logo, not even the Founders Edition branding. There is a sticker on the back which has some basic specifications including the card size and power requirements. The sticker also lists everything inside and then has information on the warranty across multiple languages. Outside of that, the only thing visible on the box is the silver line drawing on top of the hourglass-like shape that is also on the RTX 4080 Founders Edition’s cooler.

The end view shows what makes the packaging interesting though. It is made entirely out of corrugated plastic and from the end, you can see that most of the box is hollow, you can see through the top and bottom openings. Nvidia then has the tear-off tape on both ends, pulling those off allows you to be able to flip the box open, it unfolds from the middle and shows the card sitting in its cut-out tray. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition is flipped upside down to make the RTX 4080 lettering on the card readable and lines radiating away from the card.

With the RTX 4080, Founders Edition out there is a pull tab in the card-shaped cutout. This is how you pull out the accessory box. That has a card with a QR code on it for installation instructions and three basic drawings showing you how to install the card. Beyond that, the box houses the power adapter, which all of the 3000 series cards came with as well but people may also know about these from problems that some of the RTX 4090s have had with their adapters. Unlike the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, however, this is a three-prong adapter not four with three 8-pin PCIe power plugs on one end going into the new smaller 12+4 aka the 12VHPWR plug. Like with the 3000 series cards, the idea with the new plug is to handle more power through a smaller connection to cut back on the power plug bloat that has been happening with some cards having 3 or more power plugs on them. The 12VHPWR plug is a new connection on the ATX 3.0 standard and the goal is obviously to move to these and not need the adapters in the future but Nvidia includes them because unless you buy one of the few ATX 3.0 power supplies that just recently came out you won’t have the plug.