Monday, September 21st 2020
NVIDIA Responds to Criticism Surrounding the RTX 3080 Launch
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card went on sale last week, and practically its entire inventory was gone in sixty seconds. The NVIDIA GeForce store exclusively selling the Jewelry-like Founders Edition card was hit by sophisticated scalper bots originally designed for limited-edition apparel sales, and one scalper gloated on the web having picked up over three dozen cards to auction off on e-bay for tens of thousands in profit. Frustrated genuine buyers were left disenchanted with NVIDIA over the handling of the launch.
NVIDIA posted an FAQ on its GeForce blog attempting to explain much of the criticism surrounding its handling of the RTX 3080 launch. NVIDIA's main explanation appears to be an unprecedented market demand for its RTX 3080. The company claims that "The demand for the GeForce RTX 3080 was truly unprecedented. We and our partners underestimated it," NVIDIA says. On scalping, NVIDIA explained that while its store had certain anti-bot measures in place, they underestimated the sophistication of scalping bots this time around. NVIDIA also claims to have manually cancelled hundreds of orders suspected to have been placed using bots. "While individuals using bots may have shown images of email inboxes filled with confirmed orders, NVIDIA has cancelled hundreds of orders manually before they were able to ship."
Find other interesting answers by NVIDIA to FAQs below.
What happened? I was really excited for the GeForce RTX 3080, but the launch has made it near impossible to find one and this is really disappointing.
The demand for the GeForce RTX 3080 was truly unprecedented. We and our partners underestimated it.
Over 50 major global retailers had inventory on the day of launch. Our retail partners reported record traffic to their sites, in many cases exceeding Black Friday. This caused crashes, delays and other issues for their customers. We knew the GeForce RTX 3080 would be popular, but none of us expected that much traffic on the first day.
What's the overall GeForce RTX 3080 stock situation?
The GeForce RTX 3080 is in full production. We began shipping GPUs to our partners in August, and have been increasing the supply weekly. Partners are also ramping up capacity to meet the unprecedented demand. We understand that many gamers are unable to buy a GeForce RTX 3080 right now and we are doing everything we can to catch up quickly. Keep checking in with your favorite retailer to be notified of availability. You may use the GeForce RTX 3080 product finder to find available cards at local retailers.
Why does availability start with such low inventory? Why not wait until more cards are produced?
We have great supply - just not for this level of demand. It is typical for initial demand to exceed supply for our new GPUs. Our global network of partners are ramping as hard as they can to get the new GPUs to the more than 100 million GeForce gamers around the world. Our philosophy has always been to get the latest technology into the hands of gamers as fast as possible. As we race to build more GeForce RTX 3080s, we suggest not buying from opportunistic resellers who are attempting to take advantage of the current situation.
What changes are you making to the NVIDIA Store moving forward?
As with many other etailers, the NVIDIA Store was also overrun with malicious bots and resellers. To combat this challenge we have made the following changes: we moved our NVIDIA Store to a dedicated environment, with increased capacity and more bot protection. We updated the code to be more efficient on the server load. We integrated CAPTCHA to the checkout flow to help offset the use of bots. We implemented additional security protections to the store APIs. And more efforts are underway.
You said the NVIDIA store would have GeForce RTX 3080s at 6 a.m. on September 17th, why did the store immediately go from "notify me" to "out of stock"?
At 6 a.m. pacific we attempted to push the NVIDIA store live. Instantly, the NVIDIA store was inundated with over 10 times the traffic of our previous generation launch, which took our internal systems to a crawl and encountered an error preventing sales from starting properly at 6:00am pacific. We were able to resolve the issues and process orders later than planned.
I saw individuals who use bots/scripts celebrating the purchase of multiple GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs! Did bots get all of the available supply?
No. While individuals using bots may have shown images of email inboxes filled with confirmed orders, NVIDIA has cancelled hundreds of orders manually before they were able to ship.
Why did the NVIDIA Store not have any preventative measures in place to battle bots (i.e. CAPTCHA,etc)?
The NVIDIA Store had many behind-the-scenes security measures in place which proved sufficient for previous launches. This is the first time that we have seen bots at this scale and sophistication. Since launch, we have been quickly working on numerous security upgrades, including CAPTCHA. We will also continue to manually monitor purchases to help ensure cards get in the hands of legitimate consumers.
Why did NVIDIA send "Notify Me" emails knowing that RTX 3080 FE was out of stock?
We intended for "Notify Me" emails to go out at 6:00 a.m. with the targeted start of availability. Due to the extreme demand and site traffic, we were unable to properly process orders on time. The emails were held back until the errors were resolved later than morning. Still, inventory sold out very quickly, so we were sold out by time most people opened their emails. In retrospect, we should not have sent the "Notify Me" emails.
Source:
NVIDIA
NVIDIA posted an FAQ on its GeForce blog attempting to explain much of the criticism surrounding its handling of the RTX 3080 launch. NVIDIA's main explanation appears to be an unprecedented market demand for its RTX 3080. The company claims that "The demand for the GeForce RTX 3080 was truly unprecedented. We and our partners underestimated it," NVIDIA says. On scalping, NVIDIA explained that while its store had certain anti-bot measures in place, they underestimated the sophistication of scalping bots this time around. NVIDIA also claims to have manually cancelled hundreds of orders suspected to have been placed using bots. "While individuals using bots may have shown images of email inboxes filled with confirmed orders, NVIDIA has cancelled hundreds of orders manually before they were able to ship."
What happened? I was really excited for the GeForce RTX 3080, but the launch has made it near impossible to find one and this is really disappointing.
The demand for the GeForce RTX 3080 was truly unprecedented. We and our partners underestimated it.
Over 50 major global retailers had inventory on the day of launch. Our retail partners reported record traffic to their sites, in many cases exceeding Black Friday. This caused crashes, delays and other issues for their customers. We knew the GeForce RTX 3080 would be popular, but none of us expected that much traffic on the first day.
What's the overall GeForce RTX 3080 stock situation?
The GeForce RTX 3080 is in full production. We began shipping GPUs to our partners in August, and have been increasing the supply weekly. Partners are also ramping up capacity to meet the unprecedented demand. We understand that many gamers are unable to buy a GeForce RTX 3080 right now and we are doing everything we can to catch up quickly. Keep checking in with your favorite retailer to be notified of availability. You may use the GeForce RTX 3080 product finder to find available cards at local retailers.
Why does availability start with such low inventory? Why not wait until more cards are produced?
We have great supply - just not for this level of demand. It is typical for initial demand to exceed supply for our new GPUs. Our global network of partners are ramping as hard as they can to get the new GPUs to the more than 100 million GeForce gamers around the world. Our philosophy has always been to get the latest technology into the hands of gamers as fast as possible. As we race to build more GeForce RTX 3080s, we suggest not buying from opportunistic resellers who are attempting to take advantage of the current situation.
What changes are you making to the NVIDIA Store moving forward?
As with many other etailers, the NVIDIA Store was also overrun with malicious bots and resellers. To combat this challenge we have made the following changes: we moved our NVIDIA Store to a dedicated environment, with increased capacity and more bot protection. We updated the code to be more efficient on the server load. We integrated CAPTCHA to the checkout flow to help offset the use of bots. We implemented additional security protections to the store APIs. And more efforts are underway.
You said the NVIDIA store would have GeForce RTX 3080s at 6 a.m. on September 17th, why did the store immediately go from "notify me" to "out of stock"?
At 6 a.m. pacific we attempted to push the NVIDIA store live. Instantly, the NVIDIA store was inundated with over 10 times the traffic of our previous generation launch, which took our internal systems to a crawl and encountered an error preventing sales from starting properly at 6:00am pacific. We were able to resolve the issues and process orders later than planned.
I saw individuals who use bots/scripts celebrating the purchase of multiple GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs! Did bots get all of the available supply?
No. While individuals using bots may have shown images of email inboxes filled with confirmed orders, NVIDIA has cancelled hundreds of orders manually before they were able to ship.
Why did the NVIDIA Store not have any preventative measures in place to battle bots (i.e. CAPTCHA,etc)?
The NVIDIA Store had many behind-the-scenes security measures in place which proved sufficient for previous launches. This is the first time that we have seen bots at this scale and sophistication. Since launch, we have been quickly working on numerous security upgrades, including CAPTCHA. We will also continue to manually monitor purchases to help ensure cards get in the hands of legitimate consumers.
Why did NVIDIA send "Notify Me" emails knowing that RTX 3080 FE was out of stock?
We intended for "Notify Me" emails to go out at 6:00 a.m. with the targeted start of availability. Due to the extreme demand and site traffic, we were unable to properly process orders on time. The emails were held back until the errors were resolved later than morning. Still, inventory sold out very quickly, so we were sold out by time most people opened their emails. In retrospect, we should not have sent the "Notify Me" emails.
121 Comments on NVIDIA Responds to Criticism Surrounding the RTX 3080 Launch
The horse-drawn carriage considering the inflation would cost $100k now since 100 years ago.
The prices for the cards are high. The advancement in the tech is supposedly make it cheaper not more expensive. There is more things to consider and put into the equation than just, price difference and your inflation.
3070
3080
3090
6800
6900
And that's not counting 16GB 3070 and 20GB 3080 plus 6700.
Take it like this. The 14nm Intel and now the 14nm+++. Which one is cheaper? How do you quantify cheaper, meaning, what means cheaper here for you? Production is cheaper? Production per unit is cheaper? End product's price is cheaper? The node itself is cheaper? etc.
Port the design to the new node costs money? Is it though? It is their own product. They have the engineers who make the design, work to port it or make it better and factories to produce it. (Intel pays for that no matter if they work or not). So Intel has the resources already. If they are losing money, it is not the money they put in (there isn't a lot of them) but the time they had spent making the new node work is the factor here which means if they have finished it earlier they wouldn't lose as much money because they could have delivered the new node earlier and start making profit out of it.
Just like the 10nm. They have spent a shit load of time getting the CPUs production running on 10nm. (the mobile did make it) That is why they lost the money because it has taken them so damn long and still couldn't do it. They had to stick to 14nm+++ because they were forced to release the new product. It is not the money you put in for the porting (like you say) but the longer it takes to move to a new node the more money you lose because you can't sell the new node and product and that means you could have earned more than you actually did with the older node.
Look at TSMC's 7nm node. Companies like Intel, AMD, Apple etc. who want TSMC to make their chips at 7nm node buy time on the factory line from the calculated capacity that TSMC can deliver to them to make a chip. The time has already been sold and capacity TSMC had to offer is redistributed among the clients. They got 7nm node and already working on the 2nm. It's planning ahead that makes it running correctly. Intel didnt do shit for a long time and that is why they lost money. Stagnation not investments in a new technology is where you lose money.
It is kinda hard to explain. It is better to see it but I can't deliver you that though. Hope you understand what I'm trying to say here.
Again, the quantities were similar to the Turing launch according to NV (which also wasn't a paper launch)... popularity and bots had them sold out instantly. NV didn't allow pre-orders for partners. I'm not saying the launch was good, but by all accounts, this wasn't a paper launch.Do tell.
For weeks half the internet has been saying "Wait for Big Navi" ... "it's gonna crush nvidia" .... " ampere's gonna flop" ....now the wisdom is .... "everyone knew the demand would be huge."
If blame has to be placed somewhere, blame the small % of folks who put so much stock in being the 1st one on the block to have to new shiny thing ... "pay attention to meeeeee... look what I got." Consider 'what did ya get ? Long waits till delivery, if yours was even accepted, maybe ya got your 3rd choice of models, ya paid more, how much time did ya spend sniping, unstable drivers ... when all is said and done... is it worth it ? For some it may be and that's fine ... but every once and a while we should all rethink our life balance.
But consider, if you want a better value purchase ....
a) If you wait for the launch day price premium to subside
b) If you wait for the competition's new cards to arrive
c) If you wait to read the reviews to see which cards are hits and which are misses. .... remember "Oh crap, this model has a non "A" version GPU" ... oh crap those model have a fulty cooler design" ... "oh crap, they didn't used thermal pads on this model"...."Oh crap I broke may fan taking this stupid tape off'.
d) If you wait for the production line tweaks to improve OC abilities.
e) If you what till the BIOS fixes and stable drivers arrive and maybe your blood pressure will be more stable.
f) If you wait for the holidays to pass and for supply to catch up with demand.
Frustration leads to unsupported conclusions, and recognizing how economics works is a valuable tool.... consumers create price increases. Vendors can not make money on products they don't have, so yes, expect them to do whet every seller on the planet would do and make the most of what they got. They also can't make money off stuff that sits on the shelves ... so when stuff sits, prices drop.
The mindset where cards are overpriced is a construct ... as in not real. To compare the cost of things from different years, you have to look at them in the context of inflation exists. Whether or not competition exists also affects prcing .
forum.beyond3d.com/threads/nvidia-shows-signs-2008-2017.43294/page-173
"As we can see from this chart, current pricing for the 1080 Ti is pretty much inline with where NVIDIA has typically [$700] been. When adjusted for inflation the 1080 Ti almost exactly matches the price of the GeForce 2 Ultra from back in 2000. We have some notable fluctuation over the years, which mostly seems to coincide with when NVIDIA had true competition in the market place. When NVIDIA were on top, and the competition had nothing, the prices went up, as we can see with the 8800 Ultra. Other times, during periods of higher competition in the market, pricing was lower. You could argue that the 1080 Ti is actually under-priced for the market climate. Argue whichever way you want about the appropriateness of NVIDIA's pricing, but this information does show a trend much in line with the relative market position of the brand."
As was shown in the referenced graphic, from 2000 to 2017 the price of the year appropriate 3080 equivalent was around $700 (in 2017 dollars). If we take $700 on 2017 dollars and adjust for inflation ... the 3080 should cost .... $700 x 259.918 / 243.801 = $746.28 .
So based upon 20 years of cost data averaging $700 ... the 3080 is under priced... especially here in US where tariffs are being applied and shipping / handling costs are pandemic inflated. No doubt someone will attempt to invalidate 20 years of data wrong by bringing up the 2080 Ti .... but an exception does not invalidate the rule. We had a unique situation then where there were thousands of 1xxx series cards sitting in warehouses. In order to clear this space, 2xxx series cards were boosted in price till that inventory was cleared. Just as we see now with peeps paying $1500 for a $700 card at auction, while everything from the 2080 down eventually normalized, the supply of 2080 Tis never caught up with demand ... so those prices hung up there. As the quote and data set show.... the only time prices got weird, it was "When NVIDIA were on top, and the competition had nothing, the prices went up,"... so if ya need to lay blame, why not blame the competition.
This applies to the greater population much more to than in here with us nerds and geeks :) as techie types tend to be more data oriented. But in the social media era, there's a subset of every population whose self worth is tied to how may "likes" they get on social media apps .... "I gotta have the right phone" ... "I gotta have the right sneakers' ... "I gotta have the right video card".... "I gotta have the right jeans, handbag, haircut ... yada yada yada ...
If we wanna complain about products selling out and products pricing being too high in this sector ... it has to be recognized that this is no different than any other sought after product... folks wait on line for days to buy a phone ... the same phone that other people will get 3 days later who never left their couch. Handbags and sneakers sell out in hours and become "collectables". Fashion choices are based upon "infuencers" rather than a person's own tastes.
But we too have to look in the mirror .... If we're setting an alarm to wake up so we can start sniping cards the minute they go on sale, maybe something's missing. Maybe it's time to sit back, relax and consider that when it comes to PC componentry, better things actually come to those who wait.
If demand is greater than supply, then demand the highest price the market will bear while still selling out the limited supply, then lower the price later when supply exceeds demand.
The 3080 should have had an MSRP of at least $1000 at launch, maybe even higher. Then, a few months later when supply is available, the MSRP can be lowered to $700, and the people who bought at launch will have lost $300 to depreciation. That's an early adopter tax, and it's completely normal.
Instead, all that's happening is that NVidia is getting $700 and the resellers are getting $300 instead of NVidia getting the full $1000, which is dumb on NVidia's part.
Plus it would piss off early buyers more than the current situation. Knowing that in a few months time you have lost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Your system would just postpone the current situation, not eliminate it. Vast majority of people would just wait and the whole thing would happen months later anyway.
I think it would be a far better option for manufacturer to have minimum a 2-3 month production buffer and have adequate protections in place for buyers - like early registration and queue, 2FA on checkout etc. Notice how Apple, despite massive demand seems to be able to launch their products without any such drama. It can be done but requires a better suppy chain and better thought out launch strategy.
This is a common fact that's undisputable.
Yet they revisited ol' Consumer demand, Again.
Water is STILL wet.
Glad you agree.
And to my original point, hopefully RDNA2 helps keep GPU prices reasonable ya know
The person you originally quoted over this cites a $500 flagship GPU from 2013 (GTX 780 as 780Ti is a lot more pricey along with the first titan...so his information is 'off' a bit, hence why I originally quoted him and asked "do tell" to which we never saw the poster gain. So, fast forward 7 years you have a $800 flagship that is multiple times faster than said previous flagship. I can see why everyone is so upset with Ampere.........(sarcasm). Remember, the 3080 is tagged as the flagship, the 3090 is a Titan replacement, hence its price point. I'm sorry if the lack of the word Titan in the name seems to confuse so many. :p
You (and many others, me too!) may want to pay less, and I get it, but if it was priced outlandishly, one would think they had issues with them sitting on the shelves. You take what the market gives you. Capitalism. :)
It is what it is, and I understand why Nvidia prices it's GPUs high, because there's no real competition beyond the RTX 2070S. Hence the premium prices they can get away with.
Going back a few years a found out sort of a trend, every time nvidia thought there was no competition, they rised the price from $500 to more less $650 - $750:
Examples: 8800 GTX, 8800 ultra, GTX 280, GTX 780. The other gpus were all $500 (GTX 480, GTX 580, GTX 680). Something else i saw, was that nvidia found out that they could put a Ti next to their latest gpu and charge $250 more for it (GTX 780ti, GTX 980ti, 1080ti, etc). So the vanilla x80 isn't the flagship anymore (well for nvidia it is so they can charge 250+ for the ti and it would be the ENTHUSIAST LEVEL GPU lol)
Also the x60 gpu (which had been always a $199 - $220 and now $350) was always 50% more less performance of the flagship, and also you could always buy current gen x60 and it would be on par or slightly better perf than previous gen flagship. Until well......nvidia and amd decided not, so present day the only way to have previous gen flagship performance is to shell out $500(sound familiar?) for the x70 and more often than not, the x70 is always a bit slower than previous gen flagship (yes, the Ti, or is it "TITAN CLASS" also?)
And who can forget about "founders edition" idiot tax...
But hey, inflation, no competition, supply and demand, right? (unless nvidia and amd could artificially reduce stock so they can jack up the prices)
I guess gpus have become too mainstream? just like cellphones that keep going up and up to the price stratosphere. That's off topic, sorry.
8800GTX = $600.
8800GTX Ultra = $830
2008...
GTX 280 = $649
2010...
GTX 480 = $500
GTX 580 = $500
2012...
GTX 680 = $500
2013...
GTX 780 = $650.
GTX 780 Ti = $700
Titan = $1000
2015...
GTX 980Ti = $649
2017...
GTX 1080Ti = $649
2018...
RTX 2080 Ti = $999
2020...
RTX 3080 = $800
RTX 3090/Titan replacement = $1500
RE: FE tax.... you do realize they are not reference cards, right? They are better hardware wise and the cooler worked a lot better then the noisy blowers.
So, yeah... 14 years ago, we had an $800+ flagship...That went down a decade ago to $500 (competition, among other things, FTW!). For the last 3 generations prior to Turing $650 for the flagship. I'm not sure I care about pricing from a decade ago, honestly.
I digress as well...just wanted to clarify some information (and I couldn't care less about Ti's or whatever that brings - users who do need to get over it). :)