In a sad turn of fate, 40 cargo boxes of RTX 3090's were stolen from MSI's factory in China this morning, amounting to $336,500 worth of stolen graphics cards. MSI has notified the police regarding the matter and posted a reward of 100,000 Yuan ($15k) for anyone who has useful information regarding the RTX 3090 cargo boxes' whereabouts.
MSI's communications on the matter indicate that the factory's shipping area is covered by video surveillance. The company also frequently inspects the trucks that come in and out of the campus. As a result, MSI believes an insider stole the cards. MSI also offers clemency for any participant that steps forward, provided they help locate the stolen items.
Unfortunately, it makes a lot of sense for criminals to steal Nvidia's flagship graphics cards right now. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090s are still incredibly rare at retail due to high demand, and many of the 3090's on offer are still being sold far above MSRP. In fact, the median selling price of an RTX 3090 is currently estimated at $2,250.
That makes RTX 3090s and other current-generation GPUs super valuable as they can be flipped for crazy prices and still sell due to customer desperation. Hopefully, the police can get to the bottom of the issue and find the graphics cards before the thieves sell them.
Luckily, this shouldn't upset the market too much. After doing some quick math, the amount of RTX 3090's missing comes to around 220 units, which isn't a lot. But that means there will be a deficit in MSI RTX 3090 SKUs if these cards were headed to your location. But luckily, this is just a single batch, and none of the other AIB partners had cards stolen.
