Right now, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than you do getting your hands on a new Nvidia 30xx series card at retail prices. Whether you're after a 3060, 3070 or 3080 (the more consumer oriented cards) you're flat out of luck.
Crypto bros, in particular, are part of the problem. With the record high price of Bitcoin and subsequent flow on effect to alts like Ethereum, it was inevitable that another bank run would take place on PC hardware.
Coupled with the fact that graphics card companies (Nvidia and AMD) are having logistical and production issues producing enough cards (mostly blaming COVID), it's the perfect storm. So, you have crypto miners especially buying copious amounts of RTX 3080 cards for their rigs.
Get a load of this douchebag who built a mining rig into his shitty BMW i8 allegedly just to annoy gamers comprised of six RTX 3080 GPU's. The fact he owns an i8 is bad enough, but hoarding six cards, that just adds to the proverbial shit pile.
If you do want to get yourself a 30xx series card, you'll have to pay the scalpers who are flogging them on eBay at a few hundred dollars above the retail price. Sadly, I purchased a 3070 a couple hundred above what I should have paid retail because I bought a VR headset and play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
If crypto wants to be mainstream, not fucking up the graphics card supply chain (like it did during the previous bull run a few years ago) would be a good start. Thanks.
I blame the people that buy from scalpers. Miners are using the cards for a legit purpose so you can't really blame them. The issue is they're getting around the 1 per person limit, and that's the fault of scalpers.
That's the issue. Miners are obtaining these cards using loopholes to get around the 1 card per person limit. People buying from scalpers are very much part of the problem, but the majority of consumers who do just want one card, not six of them. It just seems so selfish that given the rarity of these cards and stock issues which will allegedly continue into late 2021, buying a whole heap of them is greedy.
I really wanted a 3080, but I couldn't justify the exorbitant price. Even the retailers here in Australia are being greedy and charging way above reasonably retail price.
Nvidia and AMD really fucked up with their card launches, that's for sure.
I can see card manufacturers building something into their cards that allow them to only be used for gaming in the future. Or maybe producing gaming and mining editions.