Question How fast will the 3080Ti sell out?

[moonbogg]

Given the market conditions I might be silly enough to actually try for a $1000+ GPU; something I never thought I'd do. So, what are the chances of a real human relying on their fleshy F5 finger getting a 3080Ti? I expect that most or all of the cards are already spoken for by mining firms via backdoor deals with distributors, and the few cards that slipped through the cracks will be fought over by bots and armies of F5 fingers on release day. So, I estimate the probability of a regular gamer getting an RTX 3080Ti to be right around 0.25% chance. This takes into account the likely number of gamers vs the likely number of cards that haven't already been purchased by miners ahead of the card's release. Your thoughts?

I predict the card goes from "coming soon" straight to "out of stock" with no period of time between.

 

[YBS1]

Oh, I'm using my 6900s. I removed my GPU from the loop, I just don't want to tear it down to put the GPU block in and then soon after do it again to switch to the 5950X, so I suppose I'll buy the 5950X at whatever the going rate is when the block comes.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Just got an EVGA 3080 FTW3 via EVGA notification list which I signed up on 9/21/20. I'm hoping to be able to step-up to the 3080 ti if I'm not able to score one otherwise. Though the mine-limiter may make me to keep the 3080 as it mines like a champ.

 

[Ranulf]

You missed it.
When?
Just now!

When will then be now?

 

[gk1951]

Perhaps the OP's question should be reworded to
"Will there be any 3080TIs available when they are released to the public?"

 

[moonbogg]

Perhaps the OP's question should be reworded to
"Will there be any 3080TIs available when they are released to the public?"

That is a better question. I fully expect distributers or whoever gets their hands on cards first to simply sell the whole lot to the highest bidder directly, and that will always be to a miner or scalper. Most cards probably won't ever make it to retail. They go from Nvidia to board partners and once assembled, straight to a mining warehouse or maybe a scalper with deep pockets. I saw a video where a guy bought a lot of 72 cards and simply sold the entire lot on ebay to a single miner for over $80k. The scalper made $40k. That was a small transaction. This is all driven simply by profitability, of course.
Profitability is the same force that drives things like the illicit drug trade, forming cartels, violence, political corruption etc. Literal wars are fought over profitability at all costs. What chance does a gamer have to take away some of that profit from those who stand to gain? None, of course. Why would they sell individual GPUs to cheapskate gamers who want to pay msrp? Now they have to ship thousands of them to individual addresses, worry about warranty and RMA's and all sorts of whining and complaining on their forums about this and that, or they could just sell the entire lot for 2x msrp in one sale and not have to worry about a thing. I think I know which way they'll go every time.

 

[Mopetar]

Profitability is the same force that drives things like the illicit drug trade, forming cartels, violence, political corruption etc.

It also drives your pension or retirement account. The only reason companies made a GPU that you could buy in the first place was because it was profitable for them to do so.

I understand that people are frustrated with an inability to purchase something that they want, but the idiotic hot takes that have nothing to do with the technology itself really belong in the off topic section.

People can vent.

AT Moderator ElFenix

 

[gk1951]

moonbogg, just saw a forum post that the Nvidia 3080ti will range from $1300 to @2200. I predicted about $1500.

Hang on to that 1080TI!!!

 

[moonbogg]

Yeah I won't spend that.

 

[NomanA]

I saw an eBay listing for a lot of 100 3700 Founder Edition cards and from a legitimate seller. Asking price is $150,000. We really have no chance until Ethereum cools down (unfortunately it's hitting peak price every day this week).

 

[moonbogg]

I saw an eBay listing for a lot of 100 3700 Founder Edition cards and from a legitimate seller. Asking price is $150,000. We really have no chance until Ethereum cools down (unfortunately it's hitting peak price every day this week).

Supposedly the clock is ticking for mining eth if you want a ROI. Buying overpriced GPUs now might not work out very well. Also, $1500 per 3070? Yikes. I'm sure someone will buy them all. $150,000 is pocket change in today's GPU market anyway. Nvidia should just cut the crap and double the msrp on every card in the 4000 series. Make us feel special by allowing us to get something a little more exclusive rather than these cheap "every man's" GPUs.

 

[CP5670]

We already have this, it's like the Mercedes G63 of video cards:

RTX-Spensive! Galax 3090 HOF Will Top Out at $4,000

Expensive enough to stay in stock?

www.tomshardware.com

 

[moonbogg]

We already have this, it's like the Mercedes G63 of video cards:

RTX-Spensive! Galax 3090 HOF Will Top Out at $4,000

Expensive enough to stay in stock?

www.tomshardware.com

The (inhale) Nvidia EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 Kingpin Hybrid Gaming with Hybrid Cooler OLED Display and Metal Backplate (exhale) can be had online for only $4,800. That's only a little more than 2x msrp, so not bad considering. Seriously though, EVGA has GPUs on their website with prices at $2000 and they're sold out so hard they all have "auto notify" next to them. If it weren't for mining, all of these expensive GPUs would be selling in very low numbers.

 

[zinfamous]

^ It depends on how long this goes on for. I'm convinced that if GPUs don't come back, it's going to wreck a lot of review/media companies.

Haha! AT is immune from such an impact. Their ~recent strategy to survive a potential anti-GPU dystopia is going to insure their survival in this brave new world!

 

[dmoney1980]

Maybe this will be the push for gamers to switch to cloud gaming...at least for those more "casual" gamers that don't expect top performance with low latency / input lag

 

[Mopetar]

Maybe this will be the push for gamers to switch to cloud gaming...at least for those more "casual" gamers that don't expect top performance with low latency / input lag

I think the games that the more casual gamers tend to play don't really need a cloud service with powerful GPUs. If you mainly play Fortnight, Dota, Rocket League, etc. you've probably already got good enough hardware for that and won't benefit from playing on a rented 3090.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The bots are so smart these days they've installed themselves directly onto the rom of the GPU's. They'll sell out literally on the production line before the card is even assembled. Sorry bro.

 

[HomerJS]

It's already sold out.

 

[moonbogg]

Seriously though, even at $999 given our crappy market situation, I'm kind of thinking the improvement in gaming experience simply won't be worth that high of a cost. A 16GB version of the 3070 Ti for $600 would be very appealing. I'm just not sure I want to part with $1500 for a GPU, and that's what the 3080 Ti would cost me even at $999 because I need a waterblock for it, plus tax and shipping. By the time it's all over, it's around $1500. My FOMO isn't strong enough to make that sound like a good idea.

Oh wait. I just remembered I can sell my 1080Ti for $800, lol. Problem solved. Bring on the 3080Ti.

 

[gk1951]

StinkyPinky has inside information!!!!!!!!

moonbogg, the lowest price of the 3080ti, if you could get one, will be @$1300. Add, tax shipping and a water block and I think you are closer to $1600-1700.

No doubt the 3080TI will be a brute but at a price!

 

[DaaQ]

If they cost $1500 then I absolutely don't need it. Playing games on a flat screen isn't that exciting to me anymore to be spending that much on just a GPU. I'd rather buy literally anything else with $1500 than spend it on a GPU. I'd rather buy aluminum for another potato gun than spend it on a GPU. I'd rather buy one of the upcoming standalone VR headsets than spend that much on a GPU. I'd rather buy some exotic fish than spend that much on a GPU. I'd rather fill my garage with toilet paper for the next pandemic than spend that much on a GPU. I'd rather fill my kitchen from floor to ceiling with spatulas than spend that much on a GPU.

Wow, makes that GTX780 (nonTi) I bought that long ago that hasn't ever been powered up seem ok.
I do have a 10 year warranty, I need to make sure it don't work...... soon......

 

[Aikouka]

Seriously though, even at $999 given our crappy market situation, I'm kind of thinking the improvement in gaming experience simply won't be worth that high of a cost. A 16GB version of the 3070 Ti for $600 would be very appealing. I'm just not sure I want to part with $1500 for a GPU, and that's what the 3080 Ti would cost me even at $999 because I need a waterblock for it, plus tax and shipping. By the time it's all over, it's around $1500. My FOMO isn't strong enough to make that sound like a good idea.

Oh wait. I just remembered I can sell my 1080Ti for $800, lol. Problem solved. Bring on the 3080Ti.

It's always a bit cringe-inducing when you look at the price jump compared to guesstimated performance increases. Of course, maybe that's where the 3090 comes in.. it already helped soften the blow with its +100% price jump over the 3080. Anyway, if the rumors are true, the 3080 Ti will cost ~40% more than the 3080, and I'm sure we can guarantee that it will not offer 40% more performance given that it's leaked specs are slightly lower than the 3090, which is about 10-15% more than the 3080.

Also, the rumors about the 3070 Ti suggest that it has slightly more CUDA cores (+256) and uses GDDR6X instead of GDDR6. So, it will gain a boost from what should be increased memory speed, but I'm assuming not much? It does make the 3060 such a weird outlier with its 12GB of VRAM, but that's just likely because they didn't want a card gimped with 6GB. That does make me wonder if the card could've been released with 8GB of VRAM (i.e. a larger bus) and hit a lower price point. The 3060 has always seemed like such an awkward buy when the 3060 Ti is appreciably faster and only $60 more (MSRP, of course).

 

[Artorias]

What's the point of even getting a TI at his point?

There really isn't any new game on the horizon to make it worth shelling out high end money this generation. 4K Cyberpunk?

Wake me up when Elder Scrolls/GTA 6 gets released. At this point I'm going to stick with my 1080TI for many more years, still got lots in the backlog to go through.

 

[CP5670]

It would be a decent 4K card at the $1100 MSRP but it's guaranteed to be marked up beyond that. The 3080 is $2000 and 3090 is $3000 on ebay these days, so maybe this will be $2700 (given that its mining performance is much closer to the 3090), but if you're shelling out that much anyway why not just get the top card. The 3090 does have a niche in VR gaming and content creation where the extra memory is useful, but this card lacks even that.

 

[Mopetar]

What's the point of even getting a TI at his point?

There really isn't any new game on the horizon to make it worth shelling out high end money this generation. 4K Cyberpunk?

Depending on what the MSRP winds up being and whether or not you can actually get your hands on one for that price it's almost definitely going to be a solid card that will last for a good while, especially if you don't care too much about RT performance, which will probably continue to see pretty drastic overhauls and improvements over the next several generations. Otherwise it's a card with a serious bit of muscle, some of which may be difficult for current games to fully utilize.

The only way I see it aging particularly poorly is if Nvidia makes another big architectural shift with their next generation of cards that leaves Ampere in a weird spot where it needs more driver optimizations than Nvidia is willing to spend time doing so which I could see happening in a few ways. One is that the model of "doubled" CUDA cores goes away, but I think this is unlikely just because no one ever wants the next generation to have smaller numbers. A far more likely possibility is that Nvidia goes back to a hardware scheduler now that DX12 is far more prominent.

I suppose if you really do care about RT performance then you're better off waiting as long as you can to upgrade. It's probably not too unreasonable to think that relative performance will continue to double generation over generation, particularly if it becomes more popular and more transistors get devoted to it. Unless we see a move towards 8K, then most titles are going to hit a wall with the raster performance where there simply aren't enough people running displays capable of a high enough frame rate to get anything out of the card in the traditional sense. RT is also new enough that there are probably plenty of clever tricks and optimizations that remain to be discovered that will add further boosts in performance.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Good point. The main users of custom desktop PCs are gamers, and without video cards you might as well just go for prebuilts or laptops, or even consoles.

Nvidia is introducing a new mining limiter in this card and existing ones, let's see if that makes any difference.

They need to go beyond a limiter and eliminate mining on any card not designated for it. Sell dedicated mining cards, but keep cards made for gaming availablefor you know, gamers.