Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 graphics card went on sale earlier today, but it seems the new $699 GPU is already sold out pretty much everywhere. In the US, Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, and Nvidia’s own website are either listing the card as being out of stock or only with an option to be notified when a card is in stock. Even stock checking sites like NowInStock.net are coming up empty-handed.
Across Twitter, reports are popping up of people attempting to buy the card in person and not having much more luck. One user reported people camping outside their local Micro Center for two days to secure one of the store’s stock of just 11 cards. Another posted a picture of people queuing up overnight outside their local store before its manager was forced to inform a queue of “30-40 people” that they could only guarantee 10 cards in stock.
so here i am. 10:33 pm. less than 12 hours until the RTX 3080 drops. there are 15 cards available. i was 14th in line. i will keep you all updated throughout the night. pic.twitter.com/a8lJKZTh67
— Bread For Congress (@breadforcongres) September 17, 2020
When we visited a Micro Center in Brooklyn for ourselves at 10AM ET today, we found a queue had formed outside as people waited to get their hands on the new graphics card. We were not able to buy one for ourselves.
Understandably, a lot of people are angry about having missed out on the first batch of the new hardware. The replies to a recent tweet from Nvidia offer some great examples. Some reported keeping multiple browser tabs open for different online stores ready to buy the new cards, only to miss out on all of them. Others said that despite their efforts to constantly refresh the page, they never saw the option to actually buy a card.
It’s unclear how long these stock shortages could last. In a recent tweet, Newegg previously said that it wouldn’t make its entire stock of cards available on day one. However, Nvidia recently told us that the cards are now in mass production with “great” yields, which gives some hope that there might be more stock available soon.
Having tried out the card for ourselves, we’re not surprised that it’s proven popular. Although it requires a powerful power supply to run, we found it offers a huge boost in performance over Nvidia’s previous generation of cards, especially when running at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K, or when using new technologies like DLSS and ray tracing. “4K PC gaming is here, and it’s finally a lot more affordable,” my colleague Tom Warren wrote.
The Nvidia RTX 3080 isn’t the only new graphics card the company has coming out this year. In a week’s time, on September 24th, the company is releasing the RTX 3090, a $1,499 monster of a GPU, which the company claims is capable of 60fps gaming at 8K. In October, the company plans to release the RTX 3070, a cheaper $499 card. Given the response we’ve seen today, we’re not expecting the RTX 3070 to be much easier to get your hands on. Competitor AMD also has its own graphics card announcement planned for October 28th.
If it makes you feel any better, console gamers haven’t had it much better over the past 24 hours. After Sony announced that PS5 preorders would be going live on September 17th, some retailers starting taking orders early, turning the whole situation into a bit of a chaotic mess.
