It may seem like a broken record at this point, but the supply of the best graphics cards — not you, Radeon RX 6500 XT -— is extremely limited. Battered by chip shortages and demand from cryptominers, gamers still have trouble securing GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6000 GPUs at MSRP. However, Antonline claims to have several EVGA GeForce RTX 30 cards in stock, albeit bundled with superfluous hardware.
It boils down to picking your poison: do you want to pay hundreds over MSRP to get the graphics card of your choice from a scalper, or do you pay over MSRP (via bundles that you probably don't even care about) from a retailer? For example, Antonline has the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC GAMING 12GB in stock, but it is bundled with an EVGA SuperNOVA 650W G5 80 Plus Gold PSU, EGA X17 mouse, EVGA Z12 RGB keyboard and three months of Xbox Game Pass for PC.
The grand total for the entire bundle is $739, but we must remember that the GeForce RTX 3060 XC GAMING 12GB has an MSRP of $439 — a difference of $300. A quick check at Amazon shows that the PSU, mouse and keyboard go for $75, $30 and $20, respectively. In addition, three months of Xbox Game Pass will set you back $30. So even if we consider the $155 in "value adds," Antonline is still tacking on an extra $145. The card alone is going for around $700 on eBay right now.
But if you're desperate for a graphics card and potentially need the mouse, PSU, and keyboard for a new build anyway, this could be an acceptable solution for gamers. But, of course, the worst-case scenario is that you sell the unneeded hardware to recover some of the additional costs.
Also offered is the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti XC Gaming 8GB bundled with the same PSU, keyboard and Xbox Game Pass subscription for $880. However, the X17 mouse is swapped out for an EVGA CLC 280 Liquid CPU cooler. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti XC Gaming 8GB has an MSRP of $479, while the liquid cooler sells for $70. Either way, the extra goodies come nowhere close to making up the $400 difference between the bundled price and the MSRP for just the graphics card. For those keeping score, the going rate for the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti XC GAMING 8GB on eBay is around $825.
Antonine has several other bundles in stock, including the EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming for an eye-watering $2,714.93. You can see all the available bundles here.
As it stands, it doesn't appear that GPU supplies are going to improve anytime soon. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claims that we could seem improved supplies during the second half of 2022, but that may be wishful thinking. Not only are we still backed up with GeForce RTX 30 demand, but with the arrival of GeForce RTX 40 "Ada Lovelace" graphics cards also expected during the latter half of 2022, we may be in for a seemingly endless loop of GPU buying hell.
