[H] Stock Alerts, Tips & Tears for Nvidia, AMD, Intel, PS5, XBOX

Newegg had another GPU and CPU drop. Sold out in literally about 2 seconds.
 
Newegg had another GPU and CPU drop. Sold out in literally about 2 seconds.
Yep. I got a few items into cart based on Snail Monitor alerts - and would've been successful if I'd had iphone/ApplePay - but I'm Android. Newegg you need to be able to check out in one click the moment item's available. Any slower and you failed.

Apparently there's an ApplePay sideloadable APK for Android but I haven't looked into it further.

Newegg is kind of a lost hill, but Amazon still doable if you get an alert quick enough - i.e. there was a PS5 drop that lasted a good 15-30sec where you could manually check out.
 
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I installed Discord on my phone and got on Snail Monitor, but there is no notification sound.😠
 
FYI - numerous reports of last night's EVGA 3080 FTW3 orders being cancelled tonight by Amazon. Mine hasn't yet, but I'm fully anticipating it.
 
FYI - numerous reports of last night's EVGA 3080 FTW3 orders being cancelled tonight by Amazon. Mine hasn't yet, but I'm fully anticipating it.
You might be okay if you were early enough in the drop and currently show an estimated arrival date (i.e. Jan 2). I think the cancels were mostly people that never got an ETA on their orders.
 
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Overall I'm looking for

AMD 5950x CPU
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII DARK HERO
AMD 6900XT GPU (OEM / AIB not particularly important,, but of course "better" ones from Asus, Sapphire, and the like can be preferable)
Nvidia RTX 3090 GPU ( More or less same as the above, EVGA, ASUS etc...)
possibly AMD 6800XT if the price is right on a good model; this has been even more difficult to find as some of the better models and coolers are close to 6900XT pricing

Combos are welcome if they're something decent like a 32GB kit of 3600mhz+ decent RAM, or 1TB/2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus / 980 Pro / Phison R18 powered SSD etc... but there seems to be a lot of lower tier junk like midding PSUs. Just signing up for regular Newegg alerts for items that offer them, I've gotten a few "this item is in stock" alerts that are gone either near-immediately or they were never really there to begin with in their entirety (suspected when it comes to combos).

Any suggestions? Is there any luck pursuing Microcenter either locally or online? How legit is Snail Monitor, really? I'm recently in their Discord after hearing the name here and there, but between perhaps embedding Amazon affiliate links and what seems to be a waitlisted and expensive Patreon for the "good stuff" ($20 Patreon; worth it if it means you pick up stuff at or near MSRP of course) plus a SnailBot they seem to run for users that costs $100 /month... It seems to require quite the investment.

Thanks for making this thread.
 
Overall I'm looking for

AMD 5950x CPU
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII DARK HERO
AMD 6900XT GPU (OEM / AIB not particularly important,, but of course "better" ones from Asus, Sapphire, and the like can be preferable)
Nvidia RTX 3090 GPU ( More or less same as the above, EVGA, ASUS etc...)
possibly AMD 6800XT if the price is right on a good model; this has been even more difficult to find as some of the better models and coolers are close to 6900XT pricing

Any suggestions? Is there any luck pursuing Microcenter either locally or online? How legit is Snail Monitor, really? I'm recently in their Discord after hearing the name here and there, but between perhaps embedding Amazon affiliate links and what seems to be a waitlisted and expensive Patreon for the "good stuff" ($20 Patreon; worth it if it means you pick up stuff at or near MSRP of course) plus a SnailBot they seem to run for users that costs $100 /month... It seems to require quite the investment.

Thanks for making this thread.
The good news is all those things are gettable. The bad news is they seem to be top of everyone's list. The FOMO for 5900/5950 and Dark Hero is off-the-charts it seems.

I have no affiliation with Snail Monitor, I just randomly joined 5 monitoring Discords before I knew anything, and slowly realized they seem to catch everything first. The reason is partly that they use (paid) rolling proxies + a high polling rate. The $20/Patreon has been worth it - I've hooked up a few local friends with MSRP GPU's and CPU's, and one or two forum members. I'm also happy to get you on the donation tier free as I've done for a few [H] people, will PM you. The newegg-only $100 Snail Bot is a waste - avoid it. Newegg has been very good about breaking auto-checkout scripts.

Thanks for making this thread.

Appreciated. Hopefully it helps some [H] members out.
 
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Another Newegg tactic is wishlist everything you're interested in ahead of time, then 30sec before one of their drops, start refreshing, and the moment Add To Cart appears on an item, Add All to Cart and then ApplePay checkout. Then see what you ended up with - it has to be that fast.
 
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Another Newegg tactic is wishlist everything you could possibly want ahead of time, then as their drops begin and/or you get a discord notification, quickly hit Add All to Cart and then ApplePay checkout. Then see what you ended up with - it has to be that fast.
I used to be more successful with this, but now when I hit "Add All to Cart" the second it pops up it either lags out on the mobile app or goes to an empty cart.

I'm going to experiment with something. I have 2 ISPs; a cable line and a fiber line. I had the fiber line installed a couple months back, but when I was on my cable line I was successful with Newegg. I'm wondering if there is a difference between the two. Will try on Monday because I don't think Newegg has drops on weekends.
 
Another Newegg tactic is wishlist everything you could possibly want ahead of time, then as their drops begin and/or you get a discord notification, quickly hit Add All to Cart and then ApplePay checkout. Then see what you ended up with - it has to be that fast.
I tried this tonight, but it didn't work. I saw multiple cards in stock on the wishlist, but nothing was ever added to the cart. Probably just bad luck.

On the flip side I was on the discord tracker and snagged a 6900 XT combo that dropped today that was linked. Came with a 750W PSU though, going to wrangle with Newegg support to see I can pay the difference to up to a 850W PSU. I don't understand doing a combo of two products that are technically not usable together. Worse case I'll offload the PSU somewhere.
 
I managed to get a 5950x from the WM drop yesterday. It was live for way too long though. Anxious to see if it gets fulfilled or cancelled. I got in about 5 min in with an "arrives by" date of 1/5. I guess we will see.
 
I managed to get a 5950x from the WM drop yesterday. It was live for way too long though. Anxious to see if it gets fulfilled or cancelled. I got in about 5 min in with an "arrives by" date of 1/5. I guess we will see.
I got in on that one too. We'll see what happens.
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12/21

Best Buy: Keep an eye on them 12/22 between 6AM and 7AM PST (9AM/10AM EST). Tuesdays are not a guaranteed drop, but a frequent drop day historically. The next time they have a decent GPU replenishment you may actually have a fighting chance due to their waiting room system that's impervious to auto-checkout scripts. Things will still sell out quickly there, but because of too many humans, not too many bots.

Newegg: You're playing the lottery at best, since the unique IP's hitting their site at the predictable 5PM is in the six figures. Since it's practically the only preannounced drop time, everyone focus-fires during that small window, and traffic is so high that even the auto-checkout bot people are complaining they're coming up empty. But if you have a phone with ApplePay and can checkout in one click, spin the wheel.

Amazon: Still the best option *relative to the others* but the checkout window for high-demand AMD/Nvidia before going OOS is still in the 5-10sec range. I've had decent success with Discord amazon alerts on another screen while I'm working at the PC anyway, and once something is in stock, clicking Product Page link -> Buy Now -> Place Order. If you're screwing around with Add to Cart or don't have Prime + 1-Click Buy enabled, you'll miss 99% of the time.

B&H: Random restocks of Strix 3080 last 24-48hrs, worth pointing Distill or Auto Refresh Plus at: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...tx3080_o10g_gaming_rog_strix_geforce_rtx.html
 
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12/21

Best Buy: Keep an eye on them 12/22 between 6AM and 7AM PST (9AM/10AM EST). Tuesdays are not a guaranteed drop, but a frequent drop day historically.

Newegg: You're playing the lottery at this point since the unique IP's hitting their servers at their 5PM drops is in the six figures. Since it's practically the only preannounced and somewhat predictable drop time, everyone focus-fires during that small window, and traffic is so overwhelming that even the clowns running paid auto-checkout bots are complaining it's too overwhelming to buy anything. But if you have a phone with ApplePay and can checkout in one click, spin the wheel.

Amazon: Still the best option *relative to the others* but the checkout window for high-demand SKU's before going OOS is still in the 2-6 second range. I've had decent success with Discord amazon alerts on another screen while I'm working at the PC anyway, and once something is in stock clicking the Product Page link -> Buy Now -> Place Order. If you're screwing around with Add to Cart or don't have Prime, it's not happening.

B&H, Asus and Walmart continue to have had microdrops here and there.
It also looks like Target has started doing drops for PS5s for local store pickup in the early morning around 5AM CST. I could have maybe got one today but hesitated. Next time I won't since I'm tired of trying to get a 3080. At this point it's whatever I can get!
 
Another option for Amazon, without needing third party (Discord) alerts: roll your own alerts with an auto-refresher. I've beat third party alerts by as much as 10-15 seconds this way:

1. Download Auto Refresh Plus or Distill chrome plugin
2. Monitor the product page for any changes, but use https://smile.amazon.com, NOT www.amazon.com. Smile is a mirror, but the key is smile is more tolerant of auto-refreshing activity, and will not soft ban (rate limit - meaning you see an error page with a "Dog" when you click Account Settings). You can set auto-refresh as low as 1 second there, and Amazon thus far doesn't appear to care.
3. Checkout quickly in as few steps as possible (Buy Now -> ESC key if warranty offer popup -> Place Order) when alerted.

If you don't have prime, enable free trial, cancel immediately after and you'll still have the benefits 30 days.
 
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Not sure why antonline boosted price so high on Walmart, but the why doesn't matter; their own site is still worth keeping an eye on with an auto-refresher, because many alert bots aren't paying that much attention to antonline since it's kind of an outlier. I've seen 3080's stay in stock there 20min+ occasionally. It does appear they've boosted their Ryzen 5000 prices by 3%, but still worth it since you'll likely be able to complete checkout. https://www.antonline.com/amd/desktop_processors/ryzen/5thgen

Also it seems Amazon price of 5600X inexplicably dropped slightly to $278 the last few times (if you catch an alert in time) which is obviously decent value.
 
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Yeah 5800x are relatively easy to find. It's the 5900 and 5950x that are rear as alligator hair.
5800x really should be $399 or $429, being only 8 cores. At $479 it's too close to 5900x with 4 more cores at $549. I realize the comparison is somewhat academic when factoring supply shortage.

Because at 8 cores, if you don't need more PCIe lanes (only have 1x NVMe SSD) and you're mainly gaming, then Intel's the far better value and readily available: 1) 9700k $199 Microcenter, 2) 10700k $319 Best Buy, 3) 9900k $299 MicroCenter -- perf/$ descending in that order.
 
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As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
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ASUS TUF Gaming AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT OC Edition Graphics Card (PCIe 4.0, 16GB GDDR6, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, Dual Ball Fan Bearings, All-Aluminum Shroud, Reinforced Frame, GPU Tweak II) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R81J62G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_lhm5FbNGNHGN2

Preorder available. Releases tomorrow.
Would $150 over MSRP be expected to last for a long time? Meaning if I waited till March or April is supply issues supposed to ease and the price go down? Or is this how things will last for a long time.
 
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Would $150 over MSRP be expected to last for a long time? Meaning if I waited till March or April is supply issues supposed to ease and the price go down? Or is this how things will last for a long time.
I think the $150 over MSRP is for the factory overclock and other tidbits like the all aluminum shroud etc... and of course the halo pricing tax too. Don't think this card was ever meant to be released at $999. I did build a system a week ago with the TUF 3070 which uses the same materials as this card I believe.. it felt really nice in hand.
 
Perhaps I've missed them, but it seems like Asus isnt (or hasn't) made ROG STRIX air cooled (usually 3 fan) versions of their higher end AMD cards - notably the 6800XT and 6900XT. Both of these seem to only have listings for the AIO liquid cooled Strix model?, whereas the baseline 6800 does offer and air cooled version. This is a bit odd considering how have ROG STRIX air cooled versions of even the Nvidia 3090, so its a bit odd not to offer them alongside the AIO liquid. I know there are TUF versions, but those seem to have a lesser reputation being a step below the ROG cards in both features and price, though still above many other card tiers including those from other brands.
 
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I think the $150 over MSRP is for the factory overclock and other tidbits like the all aluminum shroud etc... and of course the halo pricing tax too. Don't think this card was ever meant to be released at $999.
Yeah this. There's scalper markup, and then there's bells and whistles mark up. Little tweaks that in no way give you any value for the increase upcharge, slapping on "ROG" onto the card, etc. all adds to the money.
 
Best Buy has finally jumped above MSRP judging by the pricing they're showing for all their Radeons including Polaris stuff.
 
^ unfortunately the livestreams are a waste of time for most of the high demand stuff (5900/5950, and all new GPUs except 3090). Because of the way it sequentially rolls through different GPU SKU's, it's going to miss 99% of the drops that are only in stock 5-7 seconds. Sloth vs hummingbird. It's a nice idea that would work if things were in stock for a few minutes or more.

With Amazon (best chance relative to others) you basically have to be alerted, get the product page up, click Buy Now -> Place Order all in about 5 or 6 seconds before OOS. With 5600/5800 and 3090 the window is larger due to less relative demand.
 
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