Nvidia's Ampere milkshake has brought all the kids out to play, including scalpers. As evidenced by a now removed Reddit discussion, eBay merchants are selling preorders of the GeForce RTX 3080 for extortionate prices.
In view of its specifications, the GeForce RTX 3080 is poised to be one of the fastest gaming graphics cards on the planet. Marketing-wise, Nvidia isn't holding anything back either. An Nvidia representative has assured gamers that the GeForce RTX 3080 will deliver an above 60 FPS gaming experience at 4K with maximum fidelity and ray tracing on. With such big promises, it's not difficult to imagine why everyone wants a piece of the GeForce RTX 3080, even if it's not for personal use.
What makes the RTX 3080 so desirable? Our Ampere architecture deep dive digs into all the underlying changes that make this Nvidia's largest generational performance increase ever.
The GeForce RTX 3080 officially goes on sale on September 17, a mere three days from today. The Founders Edition sell for $699, while custom models are expected to retail for up to $900. However, opportunists on eBay are putting up GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition preorders for as high as $1,250, which is blatant price gouging.
The modus operandi is simple. The eBay seller basically purchases the GeForce RTX 3080 either directly from Nvidia or from a retailer, just like any regular customer. If successful, the seller will ship the graphics card to the buyer within an agreed period and if not, the seller offers a refund. It really is no different than paying a line stander, but it's a really expensive one at that.
Shocking as it may sound, eBay allows sellers to put up listings of products that he or she doesn't physically have under the presale policy. The platform's rules state that "Presale listings must clearly state that they are 'presale' in the title and description, and guarantee delivery within 30 days of purchase." As long as the postings abide by the indications, eBay will allow them to stay online.
That's a double whammy, then. If you buy an overpriced RTX 3080 off of eBay, there's a good chance you're just going to sit around waiting for the seller to successfully acquire the cards and then resell it to you. There's a very good chance you could buy a card directly before the eBay time window on presales closes, especially if you're willing to pay a 50% or higher markup.
We don't recommend consumers blindly purchasing a product until a proper review is out. And truth be told, unless the eBay seller has contacts at retailers or has lighting-speed reflexes to click that buy button, his or her possibility of snatching up a GeForce RTX 3080 on September 17 is pretty much the same as yours.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
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hotaru.hino I'm tempted to buy one, then immediately demand a refund when I don't get an email confirming shipment the day of, taking advantage of eBay's bias towards the customer and tanking the seller's rating.Reply
... or at least that's how I hope it works. -
excalibur1814 You can pretty much do whatever you want and eBay will sit back and ignore the seller. Buy it, use it for two weeks, send it back and get your refund. The seller even has to pay return postage.Reply
Then... leave negative feedback. Easy.
Either way, with eBay constantly bidding items up, they want your cash. (So many 0 feedback accounts and accounts that just vanish). -
mdd1963 What's that dated saying about a 'fool and his money'... or something?Reply
C'mon, Man!!!!!!!!! :) -
derekullo Reply
Ebay accounts only require an email address to create.DookieDraws said:A holes! Hope they shut down their accounts.
An unlimited amount of email addresses can be created.
Do you see where I am going with this ... -
thisisaname ReplyMarketing-wise, Nvidia isn't holding anything back either.
True if you do not include benchmarks, quite a lot of youtube tech channels have the cards ( even unboxing it) but are not allowed to release any benchmarks :/ -
Math Geek it is so tempting to take advantage of the fools willing to drop the cash like this.Reply
i used to do this with iphones back in the day. i'd pre-order the new one, pick it up release day and then stand outside the apple store with the unopened box and taking the first $1500 cash handed to me. the phones were only about $700 back then so it was a HUGE mark-up.
i'd get everyone i knew to pre-order one and with sometimes 10 new phones in hand, i'd easily net thousands of bucks in no time (think $8000 was my best release day!!). then i'd take the profit, order another one for the second release for personal use and then sell my last years model for $500 or so to a t-mobile user who could not get the phone. this was of course back when at&t was exclusive carrier. never once did i feel bad for the fools who bought them from me.
i really don't blame folks for doing this since it is so tempting. i personally blame the folks willing to pay it instead of waiting a couple months for stock to be easy to get. then buy from a reputable seller for reg price. those gougers would be stuck with having to sell for normal prices since no one was willing to pay the huge price.
but supply and demand and all that, so if people are willing to pay such crazy prices, then people will be willing to charge the prices!! want to stop the gouging? stop paying the price. -
Turtle Rig The card itself will cost over 1200 dollars. The nVidia pricing just like their 8k claims are ridicilous especially right now in covid-19 times. Firstly the FE versions of the cards will be rare thus over priced and the retailer versions will have overclock edition and triple fans and RGB lights and those will sell for 1200 or more. The 3090 will be had for 1600 to 1800 and the 3090Ti at 2500 after tax and what not. 🤷♀️👶😲Reply