Do you remember the terribly disappointing ending of the famous Spanish film Welcome Mr. Marshall? That's exactly what happened with the "ghost launch" of the RTX 3080 GPU a few days ago.
After so much anticipation and excitement, those eager for the first of NVIDIA's three new graphics cards quickly saw their dream dashed, as they weren't able to buy one. As you've probably guessed, the RTX 3080 stock sold out in the blink of an eye!
Unfortunately, stock was limited and quickly succumbed to overwhelming demand, sparking widespread discontent among potential customers. Presumably, bot-based speculators were behind this chaos, which
explains why NVIDIA had to take drastic measures against them.
NVIDIA's explanation for the RTX 3080 shortage
After this chaotic situation, NVIDIA owes everyone an explanation. To that end, NVIDIA has published a special FAQ on the GeForce blog, in which it publicly apologizes and provides answers regarding the RTX 3080 shortage.
Obviously, the main reason was that the initial stock of graphics cards didn't meet this unprecedented demand. According to NVIDIA, the store was overwhelmed with 10 times the volume of traffic they had anticipated.
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 Edition.
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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 update the purchase page.
For $75 a month, members have access to bots and other information that help them quickly buy items and resell them.
According to this testimony, although it was subsequently deleted, it was understood that BounceAlert was able to place orders for approximately 42 units of RTX 3080 before the stock ran out.
To counter the situation and prevent it from happening again, NVIDIA had to take a series of rigorous measures.
The first step was to move the store's environment to a dedicated area, while simultaneously increasing security measures against bots. This included improving the store's code and introducing CAPTCHA for final payment, with the aim of
reducing bot activity.
In addition, NVIDIA announces that it will manually review RTX 3080 orders to prevent mass purchases by speculators and filter out bots.
The availability of the RTX 3080 is expected to increase in the coming weeks
Rest assured, gamers! NVIDIA confirms that the RTX 3080 is currently at 100% production and that weekly shipments will continue to increase. They
began shipping stock to assemblers in August and have been increasing supply week after week.
Despite this, demand remains high and current capacity is still insufficient to meet it. They will need to continue increasing capacity to keep up with
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.
