Do you remember the terribly disappointing ending of the famous Spanish film Welcome Mr. Marshall? This is exactly what happened with the “ghost launch” of the RTX 3080 GPU a few days ago.
After so much waiting and enthusiasm, those interested in the first of three new NVIDIA graphics cards quickly saw their dream dashed, not having had the chance to buy one. As you might have guessed, stock of the RTX 3080 strangely sold out in the blink of an eye!
Unfortunately, stocks were limited and therefore quickly succumbed to monumental demands, which aroused unparalleled dissatisfaction among its prospects.
Presumably, speculators using bots would be at the origin of this mess, which explains why NVIDIA had to take drastic measures against them.
NVIDIA's explanations for the RTX 3080 shortage
After this chaotic situation, NVDIA owes everyone an explanation. For this, NVIDIA publishes a special FAQ on the GeForce blog, through which it publicly apologizes and provides answers about the RTX 3080 shortage situation.
Obviously, the main reason was that the initial stock of graphics cards did not match this unprecedented demand. According to NVIDIA, the store was overwhelmed with 10 times the volume of traffic they expected.
On the other hand, NVIDIA explains that the responsibility lies in particular with the surge of bots and speculators on online stores, having opted for the most expensive and exclusive version of the RTX 3080: the Founders Editon.
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How did the speculators do it?
The speculators, not very discreet, launched a tweet in which they thanked the creator of the automated bot, Bounce Alert, which allowed them to instantly order dozens of units on the NVIDIA website, while people were desperate to put update the purchase page.
For $75 a month, members get access to bots and other information that helps them quickly buy items and resell them.
According to this testimony, although it was subsequently deleted, it would have been understood that BounceAlert was able to place orders for approximately 42 units of RTX 3080, before stock ran out.
To counter the situation and prevent this from happening again, NVIDIA had to take a series of rigorous measures.
The first was to move the store environment to an area entirely dedicated to it, increasing security measures against bots.
This includes improving the store code, as well as introducing the use of CAPTCHA in the final checkout, with a view to reducing the use of bots.
In addition, NVIDIA announces that it will ensure to manually review RTX 3080 orders to avoid massive purchases by speculators and to filter out bots.
RTX 3080 availability expected to increase in the coming weeks
Rest assured, dear players!
NVIDIA claims that the RTX 3080 is currently at 100% production level and that weekly deliveries will be increasingly consistent. They begin shipping inventory to assemblers in August, and have been increasing supply week after week.
Despite this, demand is still high and current capacity is still unable to meet it.
They will have to continue to increase it more to be able to meet the demand.
NVIDIA warns us against opportunistic resellers who have taken advantage of the situation, and recommends that we only contact our trusted resellers for the availability of these graphics cards.
