Thursday, March 13th 2025
Indian Retailer Holds Baffling Competition - Lucky Winners Will Buy COLORFUL GeForce RTX 5080 Cards at "MSRP"
A farcical "GIGABYTE RTX 5090 Super Bundle" was highlighted by PC hardware media outlets last week—the steep demand for flagship and high-end NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" graphics cards has prompted the creation of many "innovative" anti-scalper selling strategies. Another ludicrous example has emerged courtesy of fresh news coverage focusing on an "EliteHubs x COLORFUL RTX 5080 Campaign." This competition is open to residents of India—EliteHubs advertises itself as a popular regional "computer accessories store and Esports tournament organizer." Unfortunately, current global market conditions have inflated prices of recently launched new generation graphics card models—the "EliteHubs x COLORFUL RTX 5080 Campaign" apparently rallies against such practices, albeit in an extremely limited fashion. The competition's author delivered crucial details: "we're thrilled to announce an exclusive opportunity where three lucky winners will each receive a brand-new COLORFUL RTX 5080 Ultra White OC graphics card—one unit per person! This powerhouse graphics card is available at the official NVIDIA MSRP of Rs. 1,10,000 (~$1265 USD)."
According to TechSpot, a quick investigation revealed that the advertised cost of ownership was accurate—they noted: "checking other online stores in India shows all the COLORFUL RTX 5080 Ultra W OC models are priced above that MSRP. This is a higher-end third-party card, admittedly, so it appears participants are getting the chance to buy it at a slightly cheaper price than usual. Still, most people expect competitions to have actual prizes, and the fact there will be only three winners is a bit comical." Prior to official launch—in late January—a Vietnamese customer managed to bag themselves the same model for a princely sum of $1400. VideoCardz did not receive a response from COLORFUL, prior to the publication of their news coverage. The Chinese AIB did not provide comment when asked about said promotional campaign.
Sources:
Elite Hubs Official, VideoCardz, TechSpot
According to TechSpot, a quick investigation revealed that the advertised cost of ownership was accurate—they noted: "checking other online stores in India shows all the COLORFUL RTX 5080 Ultra W OC models are priced above that MSRP. This is a higher-end third-party card, admittedly, so it appears participants are getting the chance to buy it at a slightly cheaper price than usual. Still, most people expect competitions to have actual prizes, and the fact there will be only three winners is a bit comical." Prior to official launch—in late January—a Vietnamese customer managed to bag themselves the same model for a princely sum of $1400. VideoCardz did not receive a response from COLORFUL, prior to the publication of their news coverage. The Chinese AIB did not provide comment when asked about said promotional campaign.
23 Comments on Indian Retailer Holds Baffling Competition - Lucky Winners Will Buy COLORFUL GeForce RTX 5080 Cards at "MSRP"
videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-claims-to-have-shipped-twice-as-many-rtx-50-cards-as-rtx-40-since-launch-but-its-an-unfair-comparison
The only way things will change is for all of us to stop buying Nvidia as well as telling everyone who will listen to do the same.
You can laugh or you can cry folks, that choice is always yours.
Is it too much asked to sell cat themed mainbards, graphic cards, keyboards, mouse? Or anime girls. Or for others cars / plants / whatever. Or implement more "fake wood" on mainboards and graphic cards. There are many options.
Just think about all those fancy phone or tablet cases someone can buy.
Yeston really should export their products to more countries, like I mentioned it seems that they are always in stock apparently they have ample supply or no one is buying them! Their prices are also very competitive compared to Sapphire, XFX and Powercolor.
But it's different for all other partners. AIBs and stores made a killing during cryptomadnesses and COVID related shopping sprees. Now all the action (server AI business) is happening without them, and they get cards by the handful - they might as well scalp them, they won't make more revenue by increasing sales volume, because they have been told how much they will get.
Sales actions like these, where people get the chance of "winning" a GPU at the price Nvidia was advertising at launch is just a stark reminder of how silly the situation is. Other reminders will follow - shop closures, AIB partners giving up.
5090 with around the same price as it's name(5400USD or 4300USD)
Though if it gets to end after delay of way too many years eventual punitives are rarely severe enough to be any deterrent and not enforced.
And CEO and buddies not feeling the consequencies in their back skin further degrades deterrent value.
I remember and miss the times when I could buy a custom GTX 780 Ti on the local electric store straight next day after it was released, exactly for MSRP.
For example: during COVID you had situations like Microsoft changing their business license structure to:
1) 12 month lock-in contract per license.
2) Month-to-month license with 30% markup over the lock-in price.
And of course companies paid for the locked in contract. Because what else could they do? Uproot their entire infrastructure and move it elsewhere?
A lot of vendors became like Microsoft in that they realised that consumers will pay almost anything they charge, that strategy has persisted to this day. Because why would they stop if it keeps working?
That's why I referenced COVID specifically. Crypto was isolated to mostly the hardware space, COVID pushed this "wring the customer for all they're worth" thinking to everything.
A recommended price is just that, it is not a mandated price cap.
RTX 5080 are in stock at as low as 1450 EUR (technically just about 250 EUR more than MSRP), but aren't flying off the shelves - and why should they, they are basically the same card as RTX 4080 Super that could be had for 1000 EUR before this Blackwell fiasco.