Trying to buy a GPU in 2021? Oh boy..

[Seemo]

Hello everyone,

Please don't mind my bad english while reading this, I'm trying my best without using any translator :D

 

What's the purpose of this post? Well.. the title says it all. (Spoiler: massive plaint)

 

I've been working, gaming and whatever you would do with your self built computer since 2011, never really been into fancy builds or yearly upgrades, i always put the hardware that I felt meeting my needs every once in a while.

 

After the 3000 series came out last year, i thought it was time to retire my good old 1070 (Zotac AMP! Extreme) and get myself, possibly, a 3070 so I could enjoy a 2k 60fps 144hz experience (since then, I've been playing 1080p 60hz with overall decent results). 

 

I wish I never had this idea. 

 

I have pre-ordered a 3070 (Gigabyte gaming oc) for 589€ in late October from a local computer shop. And that's it, that GPU is just a number on a piece of paper at the moment, and we're at the end of March. 

it's not that i was absolutely craving for this card, my 1070 still did the job (well, at 2k 144hz not anymore but it's decent), but the more time goes by and the more I'm starting to feel frustrated.

 

And boys, this is just the beginning.

 

After months of patience I am now aware that this computer store won't let me see my 3070, since that the retail price skyrocketed (basically it almost doubled), and it's giving priority to those customers who paid more, even though they came later than me (waaaay later). There's no point for me to get mad at those clowns, so in the meantime i start looking for something else on my own to the point that basically any GPU from the 3000 series would be fine. 

 

The more I look, the more I feel bad about how this situation is.

 

Scalpers are all over the place. Any kind of marketplace is infected by them.

Scammers are all over the place too.

 

Even on Amazon! I've learned that people would hack sellers with good feedbacks, put some GPUs to sell, reject your payment and ask you to pay somewhere else. At least I'm not that stupid to fall for it but I'm pretty sure that someone did.

 

people is so desperate to get this cards that would even pay for bots, and getting scammed for those bots too! 

everyone is just looking on those telegram groups hoping to get the deal before thousand of others that are waiting for that notification, eventually losing to those who have an actual working bot and that end up reselling those cards at double the price on the Facebook marketplace.

 

And what makes me even more frustrated is that the more awareness i have of all this, the more I want that stupid 3070 that i have ordered almost 6 months ago, yet i still don't know why all this bothers me so much. At the end of the day, i still have a fully functional computer and I'm just waiting for a piace of hardware, which is far from a primary need.

 

Sorry for the long, messy rant about all this.

i might just stick with my 1070 until it dies.

 

[Seemo]

Did you queue when the pre-order started?

For both 3080 and 3070 the only way I knew I could get it was going on the nvidia website and look up for authorized retailers. That's how I ended up in the situation i am today

[mariushm]

If you actually paid money with your pre-order and the store keeps your money, what they're doing is kind of illegal.

Your pre-order has priority and at the very least they should have given you the option to pay the price difference to get your card.

Depending where you live you may even have a small claims lawsuit on your hands.

 

Cancel your order on the local store and make a preorder on Amazon but look for "Sold by Amazon" , "Fullfilled by Amazon" , "Shipped by Amazon" ...  often you may see third party sellers listed for a product but if you go down and click on "new and used" link you'll find seller "Amazon" with a slightly higher price or with estimated to arrive in stocks in a month or so.

If you go with the "sold by Amazon" there's higher chances you'll get it, you'll basically be in a waiting list with others that preorder and when the pallet of cards arrives, you'll receive it but it may take 1-2 iterations (first shipment may not have enough cards for all orders in the queue)

 

 

[Seemo]

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Cancel your order on the local store and make a preorder on Amazon but look for "Sold by Amazon" , "Fullfilled by Amazon" , "Shipped by Amazon" ...  often you may see third party sellers listed for a product but if you go down and click on "new and used" link you'll find seller "Amazon" with a slightly higher price or with estimated to arrive in stocks in a month or so.

Would that be possible that for Amazon italy there's no such thing as preordering those products at the moment?

 

Edit: that might be because every GPU i see is sold by third party retailers, like gigabyte, msi and asus from their own stores on Amazon.

[mariushm]

8 minutes ago, Seemo said:

Would that be possible that for Amazon italy there's no such thing as preordering those products at the moment?

 

Edit: that might be because every GPU i see is sold by third party retailers, like gigabyte, msi and asus from their own stores on Amazon.

You're in EU... there's also amazon.de , amazon.fr ...  and also amazon.co.uk (which while no longer in eu, it still has cheap shipping but you may pay 2-5% customs taxes)

No reason to limit yourself to amazon italy.

 

[Seemo]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You're in EU... there's also amazon.de , amazon.fr ...  and also amazon.co.uk (which while no longer in eu, it still has cheap shipping but you may pay 2-5% customs taxes)

No reason to limit yourself to amazon italy.

 

Unfortunately is not that simple. I.e. amazon.de sometimes doesn't ship to italy for whatever reason. Also on amazon.de/.es/.fr i never saw a single RTX sold and shipped by Amazon

[Tonyx]

2 minutes ago, Seemo said:

Unfortunately is not that simple. I.e. amazon.de sometimes doesn't ship to italy for whatever reason. Also on amazon.de/.es/.fr i never saw a single RTX sold and shipped by Amazon

of course, are out of stock everywhere

[Seemo]

2 minutes ago, Tonyx said:

of course, are out of stock everywhere.

Yeah i mean, i know the situation, lack of resources and all that stuff. The point is that i don't think I've ever seen on Amazon EU a single GPU sold directly from Amazon. That's what it makes it hard to buy, other sellers on Amazon might have some but at ridiculously high prices (like 2k euros for a 3070, 3k euros for a 3090)

[Tonyx]

i had see a 6900xt for 1400€ in different times sounds a lot, but today is almost a good deal

[Tom09]

I am lucky that I built a computer last year and it is good enough for what I want to use it for so I am not looking to upgrade. However I do understand how hard it is to get a new graphics card unless you want to pay double for how much it is worth.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Graphics Cards

[Seemo]

46 minutes ago, Tom09 said:

I am lucky that I built a computer last year and it is good enough for what I want to use it for so I am not looking to upgrade. However I do understand how hard it is to get a new graphics card unless you want to pay double for how much it is worth.

Yeah.. double or even triple. I'm ok with my computer so far don't get me wrong. I'm just upset with all that happened after pre ordering the 3070. What a mess

[agatong55]

I had to buy a new computer for my fiancé since she was using my old fx6300 and 270x computer that finally took a crap, so went to microcenter on thursday the same day as the 6700xt launch, there was 50 people in line, I wasnt going to wait for that so I went into the store and started picking out parts and they had 1 asus 1650 oc in stock, here was the kicker there was 3 guys around all on there phones looking at ebay and auction sites trying to figure out how much they could resale that for, I was able to grab it though just as a stop gate till I can get a hold of a 3000 series for her. 

 

im hoping this time next year everything is more stable and parts are available again 

[Seemo]

9 minutes ago, agatong55 said:

I had to buy a new computer for my fiancé since she was using my old fx6300 and 270x computer that finally took a crap, so went to microcenter on thursday the same day as the 6700xt launch, there was 50 people in line, I wasnt going to wait for that so I went into the store and started picking out parts and they had 1 asus 1650 oc in stock, here was the kicker there was 3 guys around all on there phones looking at ebay and auction sites trying to figure out how much they could resale that for, I was able to grab it though just as a stop gate till I can get a hold of a 3000 series for her. 

 

im hoping this time next year everything is more stable and parts are available again 

I'm kinda in that situation as well. My 1070 would go into my girlfriend's freshly built computer. Since the GPU is the only thing missing in it (since basically last November) i was waiting for my 3070 to arrive before swapping. Since it never did arrive, i started looking for a backup GPU so I could at least give her the computer, though there's literally nothing at a reasonable price, unless you buy something that has very little use with today's standards. 

[agatong55]

2 minutes ago, Seemo said:

I'm kinda in that situation as well. My 1070 would go into my girlfriend's freshly built computer. Since the GPU is the only thing missing in it (since basically last November) i was waiting for my 3070 to arrive before swapping. Since it never did arrive, i started looking for a backup GPU so I could at least give her the computer, though there's literally nothing at a reasonable price, unless you buy something that has very little use with today's standards. 

Microcenter had a bunch of 1030 and 710s for 80 to 100 dollars but had 1 1650 for 190, so I just went with the 1650 because I wasn't going to pay 100 dollars for a downgrade ( according to bench marks the 270x is better than the 1030 )

[mariushm]

Yeah... and I literally sold a RX 570 4 GB yesterday for around 122$ (in local currency) and people were still trying to negotiate prices and ask for discounts ... had 5 interested people within the first hour.

 

For that money, new cards you can buy here are GT 730 and RX 550 cards, even used rx 57 were around 10-20$ more but wanted to sell this one fast, because it was the sapphire pulse ITX version, with single fan, so was aggressive with the price.

[Seemo]

31 minutes ago, agatong55 said:

Microcenter had a bunch of 1030 and 710s for 80 to 100 dollars but had 1 1650 for 190, so I just went with the 1650 because I wasn't going to pay 100 dollars for a downgrade ( according to bench marks the 270x is better than the 1030 )

Basically the same as what I can find from the Microcenter italian equivalent (Media World). Though they're "top" product available is a 1050 for 160€ ()

 

33 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Yeah... and I literally sold a RX 570 4 GB yesterday for around 122$ (in local currency) and people were still trying to negotiate prices and ask for discounts ... had 5 interested people within the first hour.

 

For that money, new cards you can buy here are GT 730 and RX 550 cards, even used rx 57 were around 10-20$ more but wanted to sell this one fast, because it was the sapphire pulse ITX version, with single fan, so was aggressive with the price.

Used market is unreliable nowadays. People sell pictures of graphic cards (title is i.e. rtx 2060 .png) and in the description they tell you that you will bid for a picture. A lot of people just fall for it. In other marketplaces such as facebook or similar, people sell defective GPUs for 100€, old RX 580s at 500€ (thanks a lot crypto)... it's all like this. Drives me crazy 

[Tonyx]

On 3/23/2021 at 1:06 PM, mariushm said:

Yeah... and I literally sold a RX 570 4 GB yesterday for around 122$ (in local currency) and people were still trying to negotiate prices and ask for discounts ... had 5 interested people within the first hour.

 

back in september 2020 i sold my r9 280 for 60€ ...

now i could ask 100€ with no issues 

i see the inferior gtx960 for 150 lol

On 3/23/2021 at 1:43 PM, Seemo said:

Basically the same as what I can find from the Microcenter italian equivalent (Media World). Though they're "top" product available is a 1050 for 160€ ()

 

they had on list gtx1650 (not super) for 179 and rtx3060 12gb for 549, of couse both them out of stock but still...

elsewhere are sold for 850-900

[Seemo]

5 hours ago, Tonyx said:

they had on list gtx1650 (not super) for 179 and rtx3060 12gb for 549, of couse both them out of stock but still...

elsewhere are sold for 850-900

Also "Unieuro" has decent prices, though bots are all over the place and everytime i get notified for a restock it's sold already. meh... 

[Mark Kaine]

I definitely understand your frustration but it's partly on you also...  my rule for buying stuff online is if they don't ship within 7 days I'll cancel and buy somewhere else.  And this rule is absolutely necessary, not just for GPU's.  For example when i bought my 3070 in December, it has been shipped on the very next day, everything as normal,  so you could say you maybe just got unlucky, one could also think maybe you didn't choose a reputable seller,  i don't know,  fact is you waited way too long,  now idk.  Yes, the 1070 is a pretty good card,  thankfully. 

 

 

Btw friend of mine bought a 3070FE about a month ago or so for 600 bucks on ebay,  so even that is not impossible... 

 

I'm seeing lots of legit looking cards used, for MSRP recently , and that's a freaking good deal tbth... !

 

 

Yes, there's a risk,  but that's why u use paypal. 

 

 

[Seemo]

On 3/26/2021 at 8:44 PM, Mark Kaine said:

I definitely understand your frustration but it's partly on you also...  my rule for buying stuff online is if they don't ship within 7 days I'll cancel and buy somewhere else.  And this rule is absolutely necessary, not just for GPU's.  For example when i bought my 3070 in December, it has been shipped on the very next day, everything as normal,  so you could say you maybe just got unlucky, one could also think maybe you didn't choose a reputable seller,  i don't know,  fact is you waited way too long,  now idk.  Yes, the 1070 is a pretty good card,  thankfully. 

 

 

Btw friend of mine bought a 3070FE about a month ago or so for 600 bucks on ebay,  so even that is not impossible... 

 

I'm seeing lots of legit looking cards used, for MSRP recently , and that's a freaking good deal tbth... !

 

 

Yes, there's a risk,  but that's why u use paypal. 

 

 

Yeah i get what you mean. The fact is that i had preordered the card, and from the beginning the seller told me it could take up to two/three weeks. 

3080s were gone already, so i didn't want to lose my spot when preordering the 3070. I told myself i could wait 2/3 weeks, even a month due the situation that was already going bad. But after a month prices started to raise a lot and i decided to stick with that preorder not to lose the deal. 

Probably i had to look somewhere else way before february (when 3 months were passed already), because afaik yeah, situation was bad when 3070s came out but not as bad as when the bitcoin increased in value (i suppose?).

 

Update.
Received a mail last thursday, they told me my 3070 would have been shipped by the end of this week. Of course i didn't hear from them since last week, so i guess my GPU is still missing