How the great graphics card shortage had me panic-buy an Nvidia RTX 3090

[admin]

I've just splurged $1,499 on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 — here's why.

How the great graphics card shortage had me panic-buy an Nvidia RTX 3090 : Read more

 

[mkfink]

I've just splurged $1,499 on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 — here's why.

How the great graphics card shortage had me panic-buy an Nvidia RTX 3090 : Read more

I did the exact same thing for pretty much the same reasons 3 weeks ago at MicroCenter. The website listed some 3080s as maybe in stock at the store, but instead they had one 3090. I was already on the fence about getting a 3080 vs. waiting for a 3080 Ti to be released (Had a 2080 Ti FE, which still struggled with RTX at 4k, so a 3080 would've been a decent upgrade, but the rumored Ti would've been preferable), so it didn't take a lot to talk myself up to a 3090.

At the time, I was fairly happy with my choice, the extra cost offsetting the effort hunting one of these cards down (and also mitigated by selling my old card). In the weeks since, the price of the card I got (MSI Gaming X Trio) has jumped by about $340 in response to the tariffs (now costs over $2,000!). And then there was the lack of a 3080 Ti announcement at CES, and the rumors that it's delayed indefinitely. So no regrets right now.

 

[Keng Yuan]

Me too, after finishing Cyberpunk; 4k, raytracing and hdr together really is something, never been more immersed in game graphics, I have no regrets.

 

[RoMacNChz]

At least you got a 3090 for that money.
I just paid $1525 for a Gigabyte Xtreme Waterforce 3080. Admittedly this is a $1k MSRP card, so I "only" paid about 50% more than retail vs say a 3080 FE selling for $1400 (100% more), but for the money i would have preferred a 3090 FE. I just am not fast enough to buy one so i ended up with the 3080 from eBay.

It was the last part i needed for the first pc I've built since 2010. I was running an original i5-750 and a GTX770. I felt like i had no choice to get something that would push the 4k LG CX55 I already had. The 770 was basically unable to play any modern game at all.

 

[Nightseer]

Personally I don't like seeing people giving in and panic buying 3090, because this sends really terrible message to nVidia. That message is basically saying 3080 is too cheap and 3090 is very affordable. Meaning what incentive does nVidia have to not make 4080 1400USD card and 4090 2000USD cards. I mean if people are so easy to sell more expensive cards, nVodia would be crazy to not rise prices. And every single person giving into it is like 1400 votes, one per dollar spent fir price increase, while everyone having enough sense to make do with old and not giving in is 1 vote against it. Did everyone forgot why Turing increased prices? It was because people were mass buying Titans and nVidia saw all those dollar votes in favor of increasing prices. Just saying.

 

[Frogalicious1]

I bought a 3090 FE from Best Buy earlier this month. It was too big and required too much power for PC. It was also too much money. I am unfortunately going to wait for the 3080 FE to come into stock. It will probably be around $800 MSRP, but it still saves me $800 after tax considering the 3090 FE was $1,625 after tax, a bit too much for comfort. The performance is not worth the money I paid for that card. It just isn't.

 

[Odw]

In my opinion, you spent $1500 on an access pass to a buggy gaming experience.

RTX works in a dozen games, and works well in maybe a quarter of those. In many games, RTX looks worse, because the game's art wasn't composited around the concept of realistic light transport. Also, RTX + DLSS gives pretty shadows, but very jarring texture noise.

So my opinion? A 3080 or 3090 is only worth it if you spend 8 hours a day in Blender.

Something like a $350 GTX 1660 super can run everything worth playing well enough, and by the time RTX implementation matures in games there will probably be some RTX 3060 stock.

 

[Deadllhead]

I did the same crazy thing. Never planned on a 3090FE but they appeared on Nvidia site and I was still 6 months or more away from getting my 3080. I talked myself into it for the reasons you mentioned pretty much. My only thinking now is that I should consider going up to 4k resolution to get more benefit from all the VRAM.

 

[GritMonster]

At the time, I was fairly happy with my choice, the extra cost offsetting the effort hunting one of these cards down (and also mitigated by selling my old card). In the weeks since, the price of the card I got (MSI Gaming X Trio) has jumped by about $340 in response to the tariffs (now costs over $2,000!). And then there was the lack of a 3080 Ti announcement at CES, and the rumors that it's delayed indefinitely. So no regrets right now.

Summed up perfectly. Spending even 15 minutes a day hunting for graphics cards quickly turns into a mountain of time and disappointment (while cursing bots, miners, and some retailers).

I did the same crazy thing. Never planned on a 3090FE but they appeared on Nvidia site and I was still 6 months or more away from getting my 3080. I talked myself into it for the reasons you mentioned pretty much. My only thinking now is that I should consider going up to 4k resolution to get more benefit from all the VRAM.

Those new monitors they announced at CES this year are looking pretty tempting... Only problem now is the few+ month wait!

 

[HC1Gunner]

1. It's basically too late to use a Bot, 99.99% of regular retail stores have no stock, and what they did have was mostly taken earlier by Bots. Those cards are all listed on eBay or other store fronts under 3rd party sellers for...near, at, or over double retail.

2. Demand is higher than normal, and supply is lower than normal, but still, if manufactures worked together with retailers, Bots could all but be stopped in their tracks, basically neither of them really care that the normal home user / gamer can't find a card to buy, because they are instantly selling all new graphic cards.

3. I read a couple of good articles from programmers saying they could implement simple software run sales where it would be a 3-step process to buy a card, and and a Bot wouldn't work, nor would multiple user accounts, or email address.

4. When the demand is high, and you have an instant sell-out of a product, what difference does it make to a retailer whether they sell out in a matter of minutes, or (3) days, they are still going to have sold all their stock, and have the same amount of funds in their piggy-bank. So if a multiple step process was used, and it took a couple of days for a home user to purchase card, how would they be loosing anything. What they are really doing is running on greed, and don't care who is buying their cards, and crapping on loyal customers that have done business them for years.

5. All the big name store fronts will tell you the same thing, Bots "can't" make purchase on OUR site, yet I've seen scalpers so bold , they are bragging about their Bot purchases, and showing redacted screenshots of cards scored on Amazon, Newegg, etc. The captcha's (protection - verification) they are using, are being blown right past by most Bots.

 

[Xkelx90]

Buy from scalpers, issue chargeback. Bet they won't scalp again. There's a special place in hell for these people who buy something that others are passionate about, but they don't even care about so they can price gouge the living hell out of people. It's absolutely immoral, and they deserve to feel what it feels like to be ripped off.

 

[Xkelx90]

I bought a 3090 FE from Best Buy earlier this month. It was too big and required too much power for PC. It was also too much money. I am unfortunately going to wait for the 3080 FE to come into stock. It will probably be around $800 MSRP, but it still saves me $800 after tax considering the 3090 FE was $1,625 after tax, a bit too much for comfort. The performance is not worth the money I paid for that card. It just isn't.

Would have been very awesome of you to resell it at cost + shipping, etc. Someone out there would have been very appreciative.