Nvidia is apologizing to gamers who struggled and failed to buy the RTX 3080 graphics card on launch day. But it's promising more stock is on the way.
The much-anticipated product was supposed to go on sale at 6 a.m. PT Thursday across numerous retailers. But PC gamers everywhere reported that the GPU sold out within minutes, if not seconds. The problem was especially bad on Nvidia’s own website, which was selling the “Founders Edition” of the graphics card for $699. One customer on Reddit posted a video attempting to buy the product at 6 a.m., when sales began, only for the web page to instantly change to “Out of Stock.”
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Nvidia told PCMag it saw “unprecedented demand” for the RTX 3080 at global retailers and its own website. “At 6 am pacific we attempted to push the Nvidia store live. Despite preparation, the Nvidia store was inundated with traffic and encountered an error,” the company added.
Nvidia was able to address the errors and begin taking orders normally, but the company is indicating that “bots and scalpers” have tried to buy the product as well.
“To stop bots and scalpers on the Nvidia store, we’re doing everything humanly possible, including manually reviewing orders, to get these cards in the hands of legitimate customers,” the company said while adding: “We apologize to our customers for this morning's experience.”
Indeed, the limited supplies for the RTX 3080 has created a market on eBay, where resellers are hawking the $699 product for around $2,000 or more.
(Credit: eBay)
The good news is that Nvidia and its manufacturing partners are shipping more units “every day to retailers," the company said. The retailer Newegg also refrained from selling its entire RTX 3080 stock on day one. So customers should continually check the Newegg website for potentially more sales in the coming days.
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