RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition Reportedly Not Even Found By Scalping Groups and Stock Bots On Launch in US/UK

[CT854]

Summary

The RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition, amid a market that has seen launches panned as practical paper launches, might have actually had a paper launch. RTX 3070 Ti FE's have been incredibly difficult to find on the secondary market, and stock monitors and scalping groups have claimed that at the FE's launch at Best Buy online, not a single card went into stock. Coupled with this paper launch is a surprising dearth of 3070 Ti FE cards found on the secondary market.

 

Quotes

 

From The Verge:

Quote

 Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition card went on sale last week, but buyers looking for the $599 GPU have found it impossible to find. While we’re used to seeing extremely low stock of new GPUs, none of Nvidia’s own RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition models appear to have gone on sale in the US or UK — and Nvidia won’t say why not.

 

The lack of RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition cards is also best illustrated at eBay. I’ve only managed to find two sellers that have listed Nvidia’s own cards over the past week in the US, with none in the UK. That’s incredibly unusual, as all previous RTX cards immediately get listed by scalpers looking to make a profit on order confirmation emails before cards are shipped a couple of days later.

 

Nvidia has not responded to requests for comment on the situation with the RTX 3070 Ti, but some third-party cards do appear to have gone on sale in limited quantities.

 

It’s possible that the lack of Nvidia’s own cards is related to some early driver issues. During my review of the RTX 3070 Ti I noticed some strange performance drops during Watch Dogs: Legion, and Nvidia subsequently confirmed it was investigating the issue. Ars Technica also reported seeing “bizarre RTX 3070 Ti behavior,” with performance dropping below RTX 3070 levels and then returning. Ars says it can no longer replicate the “initial weird performance.”

 

From PCMag:

 

Quote

Last Thursday, Best Buy was supposed to start selling Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti. But like every PC graphics card, it sold out immediately. Or at least that’s what it looked like. 

 

However, the people who run bots and computer scripts that monitor GPU sales say the launch never occurred. For whatever reason, Best Buy decided to hold back sales for the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition, even as desperate consumers waited for hours online to try and buy it.

 

“No one got the Founders Edition from Best Buy,” said a representative for House of Carts, a group that bots and resells graphics cards.

 

Indeed, something fishy occurred with Best Buy's launch for the product, which the retailer decided to exclusively sell online. Throughout the day, Best Buy listed the GPU as “coming soon.” Then at about 1:12 p.m. PST, the product’s status suddenly changed to “sold out.” 

 

The off-chance Best Buy sold out every unit in an instant also doesn’t match with how the company’s website normally operates. For previous GPU launches, Best Buy has displayed an add-to-cart button to purchase the product. But pressing it once doesn’t suffice. Best Buy will tell you it's preparing to distribute the product, and then ask you to click the add-to-cart button again to begin the checkout process.  

 

This virtual queue system usually lasts for several minutes. But for the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition launch, it never appeared.   

 

The other glaring piece of evidence involves the resale market. Normally, scalpers are quick to brag about scoring a GPU on social media. They’ll then post the product on eBay. But we've found almost no attempts to resell the RTX 3070 Ti Founders Edition model. We’ve only seen a single open-boxed listing on eBay and another on StockX.  

 

My thoughts

First order of business is that I owe @777GE90an apology since I was extremely skeptical of their experience that nobody got a 3070 Ti FE in the UK. Not sure if this is really particularly notable, but I figured this would vindicate some peoples' experiences. The initial report of this happening seemed a bit bizarre even for me to believe. But, I do wonder why the 3070 Ti FE in particular has been a complete wash on launch. It's really, really, really strange to not see many of these cards on the secondary market, and there's likely some cloak and dagger going on considering the gap between the in-person Best Buy 3080 Ti launch, and the online Best Buy 3070 Ti launch. Also, considering that I just did an eBay search here in the US and couldn't find any active hits for a 3070 Ti FE and only three listings for a 3070 Ti FE card having been sold in the last week (compared with 121 for AIB models of the 3070 Ti)... this is just.... bizarre. I'm sure that more have trickled into the market since, but the initial vapor is just... interesting.

 

I'm skeptical of The Verge's hypothesis that they decided to make this a paper launch because of driver issues. Then again... I'm just incredibly skeptical of everything in this bizarro GPU world.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22534601/nvidia-rtx-3070-ti-founders-edition-sales

https://www.pcmag.com/news/best-buys-bogus-rtx-3070-ti-launch-even-bots-never-saw-it-go-on-sale

[Fasterthannothing]

So GPU stock keeps getting worse and is being thinned out by multi Nvidia cards. Not really surprised it sounds about right.

[Zando_]

8 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

So GPU stock keeps getting worse and is being thinned out by multi Nvidia cards. Not really surprised it sounds about right.

Just checking, you do realize that more SKUs = they can use otherwise failed chips that couldn't make it as the next card up = more cards available, right? I doubt the supply issues are Nvidia using what chips they have more efficiently. 

[Blademaster91]

29 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Just checking, you do realize that more SKUs = they can use otherwise failed chips that couldn't make it as the next card up = more cards available, right? I doubt the supply issues are Nvidia using what chips they have more efficiently. 

Except thats the complete opposite of what this article is stating, and what tech youtubers have been saying.

Not surprising though because Nvidia hasn't even met the demand on 3070's and 3080's, some waiting since launch in a queue or preorder.

[GoldenLag]

8 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Just checking, you do realize that more SKUs = they can use otherwise failed chips that couldn't make it as the next card up = more cards available, right?

i mean, that would help if there wasnt allready lower end SKUs that the cards could instead be turned into. 

 

like regardless they cant keep up with demand, but it is making it worse for allready existing SKUs. And by extension, the orders that have yet to be fulfilled. 

[lostcattears]

I wouldn't be surprised how can they possible have the ability to make more Sku in mass when they can't even keep up with the 3070/3080/3060/3090.

 

Add 2 more makes no sense, where would they open up new production lines if the old ones are currently full and new ones won't come until 2 years later

[BuckGup]

I'm certainly not surprised. Well maybe a little that they sold zero but still it's a global pandemic and gamers are not top priority. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

1 hour ago, Zando Bob said:

Just checking, you do realize that more SKUs = they can use otherwise failed chips that couldn't make it as the next card up = more cards available, right? I doubt the supply issues are Nvidia using what chips they have more efficiently. 

That's how it usually works, but if my understanding is correct (and it is admittedly very rudimentary and mostly derived from second-hand sources), the 3070 Ti would already be the stepped up version of its lower class GPU. I mean, if those code names indicate what people always claim they do (i.e. that the GA10x at the start of the code name), that it means that it's basically the same chip just with a few modifications, then both the 3070 and 3070 Ti are based on GA104 and the 3080, 3080 Ti and 3090 are all based on GA102, so they're basically the same with minor differences if they have that same code name.

 

So a 3070 Ti isn't just a failed 3080. Now again, this is me babbling stuff without actually having checked if it's true (I don't think I have the technical understanding of even doing that in the first place), just relaying conventional wisdom. These code names could all just be nonsense, I don't know what the specific differences between these code names represent or how different they are from each other. They could be literally the same for all intents and purposes. The only thing I've found after a quick search is this whitepaper outlining GA102 that also briefly mentions GA104 and states that it includes all of GA10x architectural features except NVLink.

[suicidalfranco]

2021 year of the paper launches

[MultiGamerClub]

3070 ti FE seems to be impossible to find..

 

TUF on the other hand keeps getting shipped like no tomorrow but gone in minutes..

 

Mad world we live in.

[poochyena]

i wonder if they are focusing on in-store sales instead?

[Murasaki]

"scalping groups" thanks i hate it..

[777GE90]

Thank you and to confirm, they finally dropped the 3070 Ti FE for the first time in the UK today.

 

On 10 June, I booked a half day off work and then spent 5 hours refreshing my computer screen for it.

 

They are 8 days too late, from their "paper launch".

 

F*** you Nvidia.

[GamerDude]

nVidia simply sold a small number of RTX 3070 Ti FE, vast majority of the SKU was passed to AIB's so they can make their own versions of the RTX 3070 Ti's. As usual, nVidia sold a small number of RTX 3070 Ti FE so that they can legitimately said the card has that MSRP, not their fault their AIB's sold theirs for lots more.

[12345678]

so what? does it have more values than anh other random 3070ti? is there actually anybody that would like to buy it for more?

[Sciensito]

Someone just sold one on reddit

 

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

Nvidia: This is a new mechanism against scalping! Not a bug, but a feature!