Nvidia's RTX 3050 desktop GPU launches and promptly sells out

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 officially went on sale this week and promptly sold out within hours. In the US, Newegg, Best Buy and Micro Center all had cards on sale but saw inventory dry up shortly after launch.

Over on Newegg, we’re seeing no less than 17 cards and bundles on offer from companies like Asus, Gigabyte, Zotac and MSI. Pricing ranges from $249.99 to $594.98, and 13 of the 17 offerings were restricted to Newegg’s Shuffle lottery program. All are currently listed as out of stock.

Best Buy only has two cards in its system, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Eagle OC and the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Gaming OC, for $349.99 and $379.99, respectively, but both are sold out as of this writing.

Micro Center has zero RTX 3050 cards available to purchase online, with very limited in-store availability at select retail stores for five different cards. If you live near a physical Micro Center and want a card, it’s worth checking out, but expect to pay a premium for these overclocked models (the cheapest one starts at $329.99)

B&H Photo also had some inventory, but again, they're all gone now. Curiously, Amazon hasn't listed any 3050 cards yet.

Predictably, lots of cards have already shown up on eBay. A Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Eagle OC from Best Buy, for example, is listed for $599.99 while another listing is asking $899 for the Gaming OC version. Cards from MSI, Asus and Zotac are also listed in the $700 price range.

Rumors leading up to the card's launch suggested it wouldn't be ideal for crypto mining, leading some to believe it might be more readily available to purchase at retail.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93177-nvidia-rtx-3050-desktop-gpu-launches-promptly-sells.html

 

[Dimitriid]

First week is to be expected, maybe even the first 2 weeks depending on how long Nvidia takes to fill new orders.

But if this keeps going, the 6600 is probably a hell of a lot better option than paying 500+ for this card, as bad of a card that is at least AMD has been able to make enough of them to have them be consistently resupplied and stabilized at lower rates than the 3060 and 3060ti which are substantially and consistently more expensive.

 

[Tom Yum]

Problem is that the 3050 uses a cut down GA106 rather than having a smaller die, so supply will be at the mercy of how many defective GA106's that Nvidia have. Samsung's 8nm process would be pretty mature by now, so I'd be surprised if Nvidia were still receiving significant volume of defective GA106 dies that can be cut down and repurposed for 3050's.

In the current climate it wouldn't make sense for nvidia to sacrifice margin putting fully functional GA106 cores into 3050's, so I suspect 3050 availability will remain pretty disappointing going forward.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I personally don't care for miners. They can buy up "leftover inventory".

But gamers should get priority first.

I'm so proud of Nvidia - as a shareholder - and glad to see their products continue to break records and sell.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

"Rumors leading up to the card's launch suggested it wouldn't be ideal for crypto mining, leading some to believe it might be more readily available to purchase at retail."

Scalpers, in general will forever have GPU cards on their radar since they know how profitable they are. The only way to stop them is to:

a) force everyone to pre-order
b) force everyone to provide ID to double-check and verify their purchase
c) force everyone to bring a voucher (printed or screencapped) to pick up their order.

Basically how Apple does it.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Problem is that the 3050 uses a cut down GA106 rather than having a smaller die, so supply will be at the mercy of how many defective GA106's that Nvidia have. Samsung's 8nm process would be pretty mature by now, so I'd be surprised if Nvidia were still receiving significant volume of defective GA106 dies that can be cut down and repurposed for 3050's.

In the current climate it wouldn't make sense for nvidia to sacrifice margin putting fully functional GA106 cores into 3050's, so I suspect 3050 availability will remain pretty disappointing going forward.

Yup that's my guess. 3060s are in high demand and fetch a higher MSRP, probably part of the reason the 3050 took this long is down to the low defect rate.

 

[psycros]

Limit orders to one per credit card - problem solved. Miners and scalpers will only be able to get one per account from each seller, which would still allow them to get a lot of cards, but they won't get them all. Yes, I know that you can get infinite CC gift cards, but that's a lot of extra hassle. Of course Nsidia and AMDuh will never take even this one simple step to be fair with gamers because greed trumps all.

 

[Beakerman]

Don't buy the 3050, it's underpowered junk.

 

[brucek]

Scalpers will be defeated the instant there is enough supply to meet demand, or that MSRP is set to the true market price (the price that equalizes demand at that price to supply.)

I think miner demand is a lot of the problem, when crypto is rising it prevents high price from being a deterrent to many miners, and even worse because the GPU companies don't trust it as a persistent, consistent market they aren't necessarily willing to invest in permanent capacity to support it.

The good news is that there's a large backlog of great games that play well at 1080p on old graphics cards or even integrated graphics. I think a lot of gamers would be well served by just sitting this year out as far as new hardware purchases.

 

[veLa]

At least it is measurably better than the twisted abomination otherwise known as the RTX 3050.

 

[Daniele 00]

If I were a shop, I would sell no more than one video card per buyer.
This way I would earn a lot of appreciation from my clients. I wonder if there is any law forbiddin me to do so

 

[Irata]

Sold out in hours ? More like in a split second.

At Newegg, all of their own offerings went straight to the Shuffle (third party offerings for $599 and up are still there).

Microcenter - some stores still have models for $419 and up available.
Adoredtv‘s launch analysis is pretty interesting. He arrives at 25 cards per store for a $412 ASP.

https://adoredtv.com/geforce-rtx-3050-launch-day-pricing-and-availability-report/

In Germany, the larger retailers did not have any cards, some did not even add a ‚3050‘ category. This seems to be a thing for all of Europe.

So in summary, this was a paper launch / PR stunt and if you believe there will be meaningful availability in the near term do inquire about the bridges I have to sell.

 

[Irata]

Problem is that the 3050 uses a cut down GA106 rather than having a smaller die, so supply will be at the mercy of how many defective GA106's that Nvidia have. Samsung's 8nm process would be pretty mature by now, so I'd be surprised if Nvidia were still receiving significant volume of defective GA106 dies that can be cut down and repurposed for 3050's.

In the current climate it wouldn't make sense for nvidia to sacrifice margin putting fully functional GA106 cores into 3050's, so I suspect 3050 availability will remain pretty disappointing going forward.

And that logic should have been plain for anyone to see before the 3050‘s launch.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

If I were a shop, I would sell no more than one video card per buyer.
This way I would earn a lot of appreciation from my clients. I wonder if there is any law forbiddin me to do so

Microcenter enacted "one card per customer" back during the RTX 2000 launch.

There are ways around that tho:

#1 bring a friend who lives in a different household.
#2 bring a family member.
#3 do what I did and make friends with management.

The salesguy tried to deny me the purchase of two 3090 FTW3 and I had the manager come over and overrule him. It was epic. Laughed about it for weeks. Even to this day.

The look on his face when he got outranked lol.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

As a miner on the side. Believe me we ain't buying this junk of the 3050. Very low performance card even for gaming.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

Microcenter enacted "one card per customer" back during the RTX 2000 launch.

There are ways around that tho:

#1 bring a friend who lives in a different household.
#2 bring a family member.
#3 do what I did and make friends with management.

The salesguy tried to deny me the purchase of two 3090 FTW3 and I had the manager come over and overrule him. It was epic. Laughed about it for weeks. Even to this day.

The look on his face when he got outranked lol.

Microcenter enacted "one card per customer" back during the RTX 2000 launch.

There are ways around that tho:

#1 bring a friend who lives in a different household.
#2 bring a family member.
#3 do what I did and make friends with management.

The salesguy tried to deny me the purchase of two 3090 FTW3 and I had the manager come over and overrule him. It was epic. Laughed about it for weeks. Even to this day.

The look on his face when he got outranked lol.

I love how you perch for companies to limit one per household and to be more strict against miners and scalpers... But you yourself went around the rules and got it your way. Way to perch bro! Hypocrisy at it's finest.

 

[Greggs]

Microcenter enacted "one card per customer" back during the RTX 2000 launch.

The salesguy tried to deny me the purchase of two 3090 FTW3 and I had the manager come over and overrule him. It was epic. Laughed about it for weeks. Even to this day.

The look on his face when he got outranked lol.

Cool elitist move, bro. You'd fit right in with the Roy family on Succession.

 

[brucek]

As a miner on the side. Believe me we ain't buying this junk of the 3050. Very low performance card even for gaming.

I believe you. The impact from miners is indirect in that because they can out-compete on price for the better cards, that leaves an overall GPU shortage for gamers that manifests in high prices for this card even if no miners will touch it.

 

[bviktor]

All hail the scalpers.

 

[Sausagemeat]

This was actually available in the U.K. for longer than a few seconds. I even added one to a shopping cart for £249.99. But today they cost nearer to £400 from retailers.

But I can’t see miners buying this thing. You can get a second hand 1660 for around £300 that mines considerably faster. The 3050 is dreadful at mining. It’s gamers and scalpers buying this.