The problems started when a reported NDA’d launch time for pre-orders leaked in the days before Nvidia’s 3080 released. 6:00 am PT/9:00 am ET on September 17 would be when retailers could begin selling 3080 cards, said the report. Having a date and exact time may seem helpful, but the opposite is true. Scalpers using bots are widespread in the graphics card industry. With an exact time, they can purchase a card even before a website’s updated to list it. And that’s exactly what many assume happened with Nvidia’s 3080.
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Perhaps the best, and worst, example is Nvidia’s own storefront. Nvidia was exclusively offering its own Founder’s Edition of the GeForce RTX 3080 card. Thousands of PC gaming enthusiasts were refreshing Nvidia’s listing for the 3080 waiting for it to become available. It never did. Shortly after 6:00 am PT, the listing for the card simply went from “Notify Me,” a button that would send an email to a user when the card came in stock, to “Out_of_Stock.”
The card never even updated to “In Stock” or “Add to Card.” This can’t be understated. Thousands of PC gaming enthusiasts agree that no one ever saw the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 come into stock on Nvidia’s website. It had to have been sold out via bot usage, with bots taking advantage of Nvidia’s backend updating before its website ever updated.
Other websites didn’t fare much better. Both Newegg and Best Buy, among others online retailers, also launched their third-party 3080 cards at or around the same time as the reported embargo. Those cards, at least, didn’t go instantly, but the difference may not be meaningful. Many are claiming that most of the cards were sold out instantly, so quickly that a human couldn’t add the card to their cart fast enough to compete.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 launches today.
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