RTX 3090, 3080, 3070 Founders Edition Cards Will Not Be Sold in Australia

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Nvidia leaves the Australia Market Open for AIB Partner Cards Only.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

In a strange turn of events, Nvidia will not be selling their Founders Edition RTX 3000 series graphics cards in Australia. Nvidia has confirmed with an Australian news outlet Kotaku that their home brewed cards will not be coming to Australia at all for the entire duration of the Ampere generation. Nvidia has not given a reason as to why this is the case, but we've pinged the company for comment.

This is quite unusual, given you could purchase Founders Edition RTX 20 series cards from Nvidia's store directly in Australia, there could be some chance this is due to not enough supply, however if the card's aren't coming to Australia in any situation that is probably not the case.

Fortunately for most Aussie buyers, this won't be a big problem – only the Founders Edition cards are affected. If you want to grab one of the AIB Partner cards (like from EVGA, Gigabyte and MSI) in Australia, you will be able to.

No word has been given on how long it will take for Nvidia's Partner cards to reach Australia markets, but I'm afraid you might have to wait a bit longer than you want to. The RTX 3090 will be available on September 24th, RTX 3080 on the 17th, and the RTX 3070 sometime in October. These are just the Founders cards, usually AIB partner models come out after the founders cards, so Australians might have to wait a month or two before you can grab a new Ampere graphics card. 

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Phaaze88
    ???
    If there was an issue with supply, would not the 3070 and 3080 have a higher MSRP than they do now?
    The yields appear to be better than they were with Turing.
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    Phaaze88 said:
    ???
    If there was an issue with supply, would not the 3070 and 3080 have a higher MSRP than they do now?
    The yields appear to be better than they were with Turing.

    I dont think so ,

    Australia population is just 25 millions , this is not a supply issue 100% .
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    Yeah, this is a headscratcher.
    It can't be shipping costs... what about their anti-consumer laws? Is there something with the FE models they're not being honest about?
    Reply
  • Chung Leong
    One possibility is that the Nvidia's supply chain management team simply ran out of time. COVID-19 travel restrictions are creating a lot of logistical headaches. Finding air-cargo space is not easy when passenger fleets are grounded. Maybe the team just couldn't find the time for a relatively small market like Australia. Maybe their attention is now preoccupied with the launch of the next card, the 3060. I can see Nvidia releasing that in mid-October, just to rain on AMD's parade. Maybe in mid-November, they'll release the 3050.
    Reply
  • jpe1701
    Chung Leong said:
    One possibility is that the Nvidia's supply chain management team simply ran out of time. COVID-19 travel restrictions are creating a lot of logistical headaches. Finding air-cargo space is not easy when passenger fleets are grounded. Maybe the team just couldn't find the time for a relatively small market like Australia. Maybe their attention is now preoccupied with the launch of the next card, the 3060. I can see Nvidia releasing that in mid-October, just to rain on AMD's parade. Maybe in mid-November, they'll release the 3050.
    Yeah I was wondering about something like that but why would they seem to imply that they would never be available there if it was a temporary logistical problem? Puzzling.
    Reply
  • Chung Leong
    jpe1701 said:
    Yeah I was wondering about something like that but why would they seem to imply that they would never be available there if it was a temporary logistical problem? Puzzling.

    "Currently no plans" is not the same as "never". I wouldn't plan too far ahead either given the possibility of the coronavirus running amok in the winter months. When global shipping returns to normal eventually, I imagine Nvidia will then make the FE cards available in Australia too.
    Reply
  • wr3zzz
    China and Australia has had very few direct flights due to Covid19. Unlike other markets indirect flights to Australia from China for logistics to use will be far too expensive.
    Reply
  • Shadowclash10
    You gotta feel bad for the Aussie people - they already pay such high prices for components, tech, games, etc. AFAIK. Although thankfully they can still buy the 3000s series cards - just not FE. I hope AIB stock down under isn't impacted either.
    Reply
  • OPINION:

    I'm from Australia. I'll lay odds this is primarily a pricing issue. The AUD us at 73c USD, but prices we see are often based more on 20c below the current USD. Plus GST of 10% plus import duties, plus distributor margins plus retailer margins, plus shipping costs. Prices skyrocketed by 30% - 50% in mid march when the AUD dropped to 57c. Despite now being at a 2 year high prices have not come down, or really stabilized.

    Each new graphics card generation seems to have attracted an minimum of an additional 20%-30% on top of the previous gen.

    Supply is currently an issue. Many retailers are moving away from keeping many items in stock. All retail stores are currently closed and places are moving to delivery only (Some saying permanently). Shipping is also broken. Australia post have ceased standard mail delivery in many areas, and parcel post can take up to 6 week for items distributors have in stock, and many months for items they don't. All carriers are experiencing minimum 14 day deliveries for all components I've ordered. (Cases, SSD, cables, HDDs, wifi adapters, RTX 2080 Ti, monitors etc).

    True, number of flights have drastically decreased and our relationships overseas are Strained. But whilst contributors I don't think they are they primary factors.

    It's not the first time. Australia has a habit of not selling items. They've skipped previous gen CPUs for example and some HEDT items. Some of the top end motherboards have also been excluded from Australian sale. For example, Z motherboards used to be all the rage, and affordable up to 2017 when prices effectively doubled. $240 would get you a good quality, full featured Z board. Now, they are anywhere from $500 - $2000, even more for AMD. Many have been forced to drop to 'B' motherboards just to be able to afford one.

    A large proportion of the population is now unemployed. I forget the current percentage figure, but another half million are expected to lose their jobs by Christmas. So money will be extremely tight and we are now officially in a recession.

    A lot of factors I guess.

    As I said before, I wouldn't be surprised if the RTX 3090 exceeds $4000 AUD.

    (Based on personal experience buying components over the last 15 years @ around $13,000 per year).
    Reply