It’s been a rough couple of weeks for anyone trying to order a shiny new graphics card or game console, and in order to prevent its next launch from going awry Nvidia is delaying the release of its RTX 3070 GPU.
In a post on its website, Nvidia says that by pushing the launch date of the RTX 3070 back to Oct. 29 the company hopes to have larger supply of cards available for purchase on day one. While Nvidia did not provide a specific number additional cards that might be produced by the end of October, Nvidia claims “production of GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards are ramping quickly,” and that by pushing back its release date “this shift will help our global partners get more graphics cards into the hands of gamers on launch day.”
[referenced id=”1506956″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/the-nvidia-rtx-3080-ebay-debacle-exposed-a-scalper-bot-civil-war/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/23/ohcf1jptzufvq8vbq1wt-300×169.png” title=”The Nvidia RTX 3080 eBay Debacle Exposed a Scalper Bot Civil War” excerpt=”Last week, RTX 3080 scalpers pissed off a lot of Nvidia GPU fans by buying up all the graphics cards and attempting to resell them for hundreds of dollars more than the actual MSRP. Unfortunately, this is a common scalper tactic: Buy up as many items of a single product…”]
Priced at $809, the RTX is the most affordable GPU in Nvidia’s new RTX 30-series line and it follows the release of the $1,139 RTX 3080 and $2,429 RTX 3090 in September, which both sold out immediately upon release. Despite a number of Nvidia’s GPU partners like Asus, MSI and others doing their best to push out a greater number of third-party RTX cards, it’s been incredibly hard to find any 3080 or 3090 cards in stock since their release. Reports immediately emerged after the 3080 launched of scalpers using bots to snap up supply. Digital vigilantes then appeared to take to eBay using bots to ruin 3080 auctions. Nvidia has since claimed its taken steps to reduce bot activity for future launches, presumably including the 3070.
Still supply of the 3080 and 3090 has been so low that potential customers have turned to expressing their frustration in memes, with one Reddit user (u/SNLabat) having even created an RTX 3080 Checkout Simulator whose only purpose is to deliver the satisfaction of being able to click an “Add to Cart” button on a fake RTX 3080 order page.
That said, the RTX 3070 was originally slated to go on sale on Oct. 15, so pushing back its release by two weeks to Oct. 29 is relatively short as far as delays go. And if delaying the RTX 3070 means more people can have fancy new GPUs in their systems before next-gen games like Cyberpunk 2077 go on sale, postponing its release is probably the right call.