Tuesday, December 8th 2020
MSI Cargo Containers Chock-Full of RTX 3090 Graphics Cards Allegedly Stolen, $336,500 Value at MSRP
Now this is the first one such article I've ever written, which goes to show just how strange and crazy this pandemic time is. MSI has allegedly been the victim of a well-coordinated theft that managed to divert no less than 40 cargo units holding NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards from one of MSI's manufacturing sites in China. These cargo units aren't freight containers, to be clear; they're the sealed cardboard boxes with a manufacturers' seal that are shipped to retailers, with each cargo unit containing (usually) between five and six cards.
The cards are being valued at 2.2 Million Yuan, which is roughly $336,500 in US dollars, when priced at MSRP. That amounts to roughly 224 RTX 3090 GPUs. Of course, these cards will be much more valuable in the black market, since actual availability of the cards in the retail space is so constrained. MSI is offering a reward of 100 thousand Yuan for any information that leads to the recovery of the stolen cargo.
Sources:
ArsTechnica, Twitter
The cards are being valued at 2.2 Million Yuan, which is roughly $336,500 in US dollars, when priced at MSRP. That amounts to roughly 224 RTX 3090 GPUs. Of course, these cards will be much more valuable in the black market, since actual availability of the cards in the retail space is so constrained. MSI is offering a reward of 100 thousand Yuan for any information that leads to the recovery of the stolen cargo.
30 Comments on MSI Cargo Containers Chock-Full of RTX 3090 Graphics Cards Allegedly Stolen, $336,500 Value at MSRP
It's a joke.
also ... stolen? by the manufacturer? for miners? so the general public is not butthurt? "oh my god our stolen cards ended in a mining farm by accident after the heist!"not if they are accomplices ... see above :laugh:
(joking obviously.... or am i? )
And the original ARS article is confusing, since they floated the idea that it was 40 cargo containers and if you put cases of cards numbering 224 in 40 containers that is only about 6 cards per container. The assumption is that the 2 million + Yuan is the retail value although it might be the insured value instead and the number of actual cards is higher. Unless of course MSI doesn't insure their shipments.
Also wasn't it MSI that got caught scalping their own customers :D
At 1 time in the distant past, I had ~100-110 gpu's in their original boxes in my garage, and they all fit on one of those 6 shelf (consumer-style) metal storage racks, so I can confirm the above statement.
Granted I realize gpu boxes are somewhat larger these days to accomodate the larger cards, but still....I think 225 of them would only require 1-1.5 more racks....
This sounds ALOT like the plant fires/outtages etc, posing as a corporate conspiracy-laden reason to drastically jack up prices even moar that they already are.....
So,,, if Ngreedia had made a sufficient supply of these cards prior to release, when would not even be having this discussion...:laugh:..:mad:..o_O
It's a joke too!
Idiots willing to pay scalper rates are what's fuelling this madness.Africa. All of it! Joking aside, the single most civilised part of the African continent is still basically the Wild West that makes the roughest parts of Brownsville or East Harlem look safe and well-policed. It's corruption-central all the way to the top with added layers of racial hatred that far exceed anything in the massively-racist US.
Or MSI just used them in their new line of Gaming PC Desktops they just released last week and need an excuse to all retailer why they where not getting any 3090 cards.
The MSI warehouse in the UK was broken into and all their GeForce FX 5800 Ultra cards were stolen.
Also claimed to have been an insider job.