Nvidia’s latest graphics card, the RTX 3080 Ti, launched today – and already, it’s sold out. All the cards were gone within an hour of launch, even as retailers increased prices. This means the shortage of graphics cards is set to continue and could get even more expensive.
Is RTX 3080 Ti sold out?
The RTX 3080 Ti was announced by Nvidia only days ago, promising “even more powerful” graphics performance over previous cards. It’s said to be 2x faster than the RTX 1080 Ti and 1.5x faster than the RTX 2080 Ti. It’s no surprise, then, that demand was high for the 3080 Ti.
The card launched today (June 3) across online marketplaces, but sold out pretty much instantly. It seems most RTX 3080 Ti buyers were bots, however. Resellers are already listing the card for double its RRP, and with so few available, those prices will only increase.
Some users, like @tomwarren below, were able to snag a card for the RRP:
Scan can't decide whether it wants to charge £1,049 for the RTX 3080 Ti or £1,318 pic.twitter.com/JHN3UsBBeH
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) June 3, 2021
This is just another example of the shortage of graphics cards pricing out users, and encouraging scalpers to buy up as many as possible. As more people stay at home during the pandemic, producers just can’t keep up with the demand for PC parts. This, coupled with delays of Chinese manufacturing in early 2020, means graphics cards are scarce. Cryptocurrency is also important, as increasingly powerful GPUs are mined to provide peak performance for traders. All this has meant it’s never been harder to get your hands on new hardware, and the RTX 3080 Ti is the latest example of this.
As veteran PC users will know, the RTX 3080 Ti sits between the 3080 and 3090 in terms of performance. It further closes the gap between the two and puts another high-end contender into the market against AMD and, soon, Intel.
Will the RTX 3070 Ti launch fare any better? Here’s hoping those using the cards to game, as opposed to immediately reselling them or using them for cryptocurrency mining, will have better success.
While the 3080 is out of stock, there’s a much small version available for keyboards here.
