Why can't we back order a 3080?

Because they have no idea when they're going to get stock I suppose.

I'm just holding on to my 2080Ti and waiting for the 20GB 3080's now, 6mos to whenever.
 
I'm right there with you man, it puts retailers in a tough spot. I am sick of refreshing pages for cards that are just out of stock or coming soon. Its crazy that its WEEKS after and still nothing, but I'm also impatient. I really thought the 3090 with its price premium would be different but NOPE lol.

If bots can order with different emails and ship to whatever address they want (drop shipping), what would stop bots from buying all the pre-orders? Same issue just delayed further.

Only verified paypal email addresses? I wish I knew the solution for them.
 
I'm right there with you man, it puts retailers in a tough spot. I am sick of refreshing pages for cards that are just out of stock or coming soon. Its crazy that its WEEKS after and still nothing, but I'm also impatient. I really thought the 3090 with its price premium would be different but NOPE lol.

If bots can order with different emails and ship to whatever address they want (drop shipping), what would stop bots from buying all the pre-orders? Same issue just delayed further.

Only verified paypal email addresses? I wish I knew the solution for them.
A good start I think would be to put Captchas on checkout. This will not out a lot of the botting activity. Its kinda shocking that Bestbuy and other retailers don't have that in the checkout system.
 
Why can't we just place an order for a 3080 and it ships when the stock comes in? I am getting tired of playing these games waiting for notifications only to see it's out of stock again... I am starting to get more and more excited for Big Navi...

Retailers don't do want to do that unless they know they'll get enough stock to fulfill it. They know they can't possibly fulfill the demand with upcoming shipments so they won't do it.

I did see that EVGA are doing something like that on their store though. You sign up do be notified and if you're next up in the queue you have 5 hours to buy once a card becomes available.
 
Retailers don't do want to do that unless they know they'll get enough stock to fulfill it. They know they can't possibly fulfill the demand with upcoming shipments so they won't do it.

I did see that EVGA are doing something like that on their store though. You sign up do be notified and if you're next up in the queue you have 5 hours to buy once a card becomes available.

Sounds like a good idea, but with my luck I'll get a notice sent just after I go to bed so it expires while I'm sleeping.

I'm signed up though, dunno if I'd pull the trigger tomorrow or not. Kinda want to see if the rumors about 20GB models shortly post-Big Navi are true or not first.
 
Because they have no idea when they're going to get stock I suppose.

I'm just holding on to my 2080Ti and waiting for the 20GB 3080's now, 6mos to whenever.

Not only that, but retailers/etailers probably don't want to manage hundreds or even thousands of back orders. That's a recipe for disaster.
 
Not only that, but retailers/etailers probably don't want to manage hundreds or even thousands of back orders. That's a recipe for disaster.

It's not just management, but if you're taking orders well in advance of delivery, you have to pay higher fees to process credit cards (more risk of problems that create extra work for the banks backing them). And if you don't know how long the delay's going to be, you'll probably end up in the highest and most expensive surcharge category.
 
Stores in canada are doing back orders; online is another matter.
 
if you can preordeeer, then bots could buy out much more than today's stock. You would be waiting months to receive your card. They also can't guarantewee hen then order will come, so they will limit preorders.

You're more likely to hit one of these in-stock before those months go by :D
 
I was wondering the same thing, bot filling them anyway leaving list so long that by the time they will get to you a lot would have shifted their buying decision (for the 3070, amd competition, no card, the game console available, etc....), leaving an high credit card fees in one of the business with the smallest thinness margin that exist (a business for who people paying cash or by a credit card matter a bit if they are not buying the cable and other item that make actual money), make sense to me.
 
It just affects users honestly, good programmers can break it: https://blog.shapesecurity.com/2017/07/12/how-cybercriminals-bypass-captcha/

Scalpers arent necessarily the programmers, they buy bots

If having captchas break 50% of retail bots then that's good

If the other 50% use captcha solving services then that adds to the fee for using the bot. As captchas become more difficult to solve, the cost for solving services should go up, the cost of the bot should go up, and so on. You'll always have people capable of defeating the system, but the idea is to limit the scope of what's required to defeat your system

Captcha solving isn't as easy as some like to make it out and any defense is better than no defense
 
Why can't we just place an order for a 3080 and it ships when the stock comes in? I am getting tired of playing these games waiting for notifications only to see it's out of stock again... I am starting to get more and more excited for Big Navi...
Because, if you placed an order, would you pay now or just pay to stay in line, or pay when it's available? EVGA started doing something similar with their notifications, but nobody else cares. They sell them as fast as they get them, why would they bother trying to make things better for their customers? I can't imagine being on a 5 month waiting list would really appease people either, lol. I think it's hard to take pre-orders when you don't have a clue when you can fill them. Could you imagine if you paid for the newest cyberpunk 2077 or w/e and didn't get it for 3-4 months? You'd be trying to get your money back in 10 days. Also, it's not good to take money in one year and then deliver products to fullfill the next year, it just muddies the waters with profits vs costs when they aren't in the same year (especially by large amounts).

Scalpers arent necessarily the programmers, they buy bots

If having captchas break 50% of retail bots then that's good

If the other 50% use captcha solving services then that adds to the fee for using the bot. As captchas become more difficult to solve, the cost for solving services should go up, the cost of the bot should go up, and so on. You'll always have people capable of defeating the system, but the idea is to limit the scope of what's required to defeat your system

Captcha solving isn't as easy as some like to make it out and any defense is better than no defense
Yeah, even if it's not perfect, at least TRY something, lol. Doing absolutely nothing is not a good look.
 
A new anti scalping measure is most effective shortly after it is introduced. If Nvidia was to implement an anti bot advanced CAPTCHA measure it would keep out some more casual macroing / botting / sneaker groups and careful order review would be nice too.
I think a queueing system like EVGA introduced and etailers in EU and Australia seem to have is great and would be very welcome at BB, Amazon etc. in the US. I don’t mind being told you are 3000th in line - I can always cancel presumably.
 
A new anti scalping measure is most effective shortly after it is introduced. If Nvidia was to implement an anti bot advanced CAPTCHA measure it would keep out some more casual macroing / botting / sneaker groups and careful order review would be nice too.
I think a queueing system like EVGA introduced and etailers in EU and Australia seem to have is great and would be very welcome at BB, Amazon etc. in the US. I don’t mind being told you are 3000th in line - I can always cancel presumably.
It's neither here nor there, they passed the buck to Best Buy, lol. They are no longer selling FE's on their site and will instead let everyone continually F5 and ask Best Buy when they will have them in stock instead. Capcha was to complicated for a simple company like nvidia, LOL.
 
The solution is simple. When you first release your card price it at $2000. Once you have more supply than demand drop it to $1900 etc untill you arrive at the $800 MSRP.

If you want card early you can get it without hassle for more $. If you can wait you get it cheaper later and the extra money at least goes to the company that made the item instead of scalpers. The scalpers are just a black market version of this solution and it makes it more expensive and aggravating to get your stuff.
 
In person reservations should be a thing. If I prepay, and get on the waiting list, it should be no issue for the retailers. But they don’t want that. They want you visiting their stores and e-stores often because you might buy something else while you’re there.
 
In person reservations should be a thing. If I prepay, and get on the waiting list, it should be no issue for the retailers. But they don’t want that. They want you visiting their stores and e-stores often because you might buy something else while you’re there.
This is one avenue I think best buy is missing, if they did pre-orders in store that required full payment it would work in the favor of the people that would use them more often than scalper. Double so if they limited the purchase per address,name, card things. But I feel they don't want that, they want the hype and chaos
 
Personally I'd like to just make launches a Dutch auction. eBay or whatever. If they feel guilty about price gouging they can just donate excess profits to charity. The problem with that is it would piss off their usual resellers. Amazon, Best Buy, New Egg, Microcenter, etc. want their piece of the action. So maybe some sort of centrally managed registry run by NVidia would work better.
 
They need to figure this shit out. The rtx 3070 is gonna be a huge launch, they delayed it 2 weeks so we'll see if stock is available or not at launch.
 
I've seen a ton of 3080 cards on amazon the last few days. Sure they were above MSRP but no where near what I've seen them go for on there. I'd say 900 was the average over the past few days. They must be trying to dump them before the 6800xt and 3070 comes out
 
If Tesla and General Motors can figure out how to let you back order customized cars then Nvidia can surely figure out how to let people back order a one size fits all gpu.
 
you kinda can with EVGA but queue is already massive ... at the current rate if production doesnt speed up people will be waiting for cards in to the summer....
 
If Tesla and General Motors can figure out how to let you back order customized cars then Nvidia can surely figure out how to let people back order a one size fits all gpu.

They can but for one they are not the main supplier, it will not stop scalers and you could end up waiting months if not years.
 
They can but for one they are not the main supplier, it will not stop scalers and you could end up waiting months if not years.


You’re confusing product and logistics. It would not take years. Does it take years when you order a laptop from say Dell? Nope. You get in a queue and get an estimated delivery date.

1. Nvidia is the main supplier of Founders Editions. They know exactly what they ordered from their sub contractor just as Dell knows what they ordered. They also are the main supplier of chips to third parties. So they know what they are distributing.

2. Scalpers are currently reliant on bots that catch supply drops in seconds. EVGA has created a waiting list of sorts. In this case each company would have time to validate the orders because you would get on a build que. Right now the bots have the advantage.

3. It would not take years. Moreover, if Nvidia doesn’t expect availability until December, and bots stole the first 3 early drops, how is getting an assured ship date a month or two away worse than hoping and praying you’re hitting F5 or have your own bot running when a drop happens? And then hoping the cart system works...etc etc.


Good lord... manufactures have done waiting and order lists for centuries for everything from houses to electronics. It’s not a new concept. And I mentioned Tesla because it came to mind. But it doesn’t have to be Tesla. How about Toyota? Or say Ranger Boats. It’s even MORE complicated with cars or say boats because of the parts involved and yet they manage to get your custom car made within a few weeks.
 
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People were on backorder for multiple years for model 3s. You won't want a 3080 in 3 years.

Because Tesla allowed orders far in advance to raise capital. Most cars take only a few weeks. A GPU is nowhere close to the difficulty of a car to produce. What you said was funny, but a gross misunderstanding of the logistics involved.
 
You’re confusing product and logistics. It would not take years. Does it take years when you order a laptop from say Dell? Nope. You get in a queue and get an estimated delivery date.

1. Nvidia is the main supplier of Founders Editions. They know exactly what they ordered from their sub contractor just as Dell knows what they ordered. They also are the main supplier of chips to third parties. So they know what they are distributing.

2. Scalpers are currently reliant on bots that catch supply drops in seconds. EVGA has created a waiting list of sorts. In this case each company would have time to validate the orders because you would get on a build que. Right now the bots have the advantage.

3. It would not take years. Moreover, if Nvidia doesn’t expect availability until December, and bots stole the first 3 early drops, how is getting an assured ship date a month or two away worse than hoping and praying you’re hitting F5 or have your own bot running when a drop happens? And then hoping the cart system works...etc etc.


Good lord... manufactures have done waiting and order lists for centuries for everything from houses to electronics. It’s not a new concept. And I mentioned Tesla because it came to mind. But it doesn’t have to be Tesla. How about Toyota? Or say Ranger Boats. It’s even MORE complicated with cars or say boats because of the parts involved and yet they manage to get your custom car made within a few weeks.

You have to choose how you are going to handle forecasting and deferred revenue (if collecting payment now) as well as recognition/bad debt/returns/etc with all of that. If your internal accounting is complex (and Nvidia's certainly is, you can read the 10K), you may decide that doing so is MORE complex than just letting people order them as they arrive - especially if you underestimated demand (possible), don't care (also possible), or have some alternative plan (also possible). From a business perspective, there's all sorts of 'weirdness' that you can get into with that. GM/Dell/Etc all operate ~expecting~ significant deferred revenue and have that built into their accounting systems (and Nvidia might too - I'm not digging through the entire 10K to try and figure it out right now, they may just not care) and thus do so regularly.

Not saying this is currently what's happening, but it's certainly a plausible explanation, given everything.
 
Because Tesla allowed orders far in advance to raise capital. Most cars take only a few weeks. A GPU is nowhere close to the difficulty of a car to produce. What you said was funny, but a gross misunderstanding of the logistics involved.

And may not (from a full-fledged card perspective) be a huge source of revenue. I don't know the breakdown between "chips sold" and "cards sold" in their bottom line - especially since Nvidia has a LOT of other lines of business too. Anyone dug through their 10k recently?
 
I can just see the thousands of cancellations from every gamer having different times they are only willing to wait. No way would I want that headache with different manufacturers getting different allotments.
 
You have to choose how you are going to handle forecasting and deferred revenue (if collecting payment now) as well as recognition/bad debt/returns/etc with all of that. If your internal accounting is complex (and Nvidia's certainly is, you can read the 10K), you may decide that doing so is MORE complex than just letting people order them as they arrive - especially if you underestimated demand (possible), don't care (also possible), or have some alternative plan (also possible). From a business perspective, there's all sorts of 'weirdness' that you can get into with that. GM/Dell/Etc all operate ~expecting~ significant deferred revenue and have that built into their accounting systems (and Nvidia might too - I'm not digging through the entire 10K to try and figure it out right now, they may just not care) and thus do so regularly.

Not saying this is currently what's happening, but it's certainly a plausible explanation, given everything.

Nvidia already has the logistics in place due to their professional, server, and AI sales. Adapting that to their consumer division is not a tall leap when you have a substantial amount brand damage occurring because an outside source is directly harming your customers. You can either take administrative action or legal action to stop the bleed. Since laws currently don’t support legal action, it comes down to administrative.
 
And may not (from a full-fledged card perspective) be a huge source of revenue. I don't know the breakdown between "chips sold" and "cards sold" in their bottom line - especially since Nvidia has a LOT of other lines of business too. Anyone dug through their 10k recently?

Comparing the difficulty of Tesla’s vehicle design to Nvidia’s consumer GPU is laughable. Tesla is not only designing, testing, and implementing their own chips and boards, they are also building the entire car around them. Hundreds of moving parts in addition in addition to regulatory testing and approval far exceeding that of a GPU card.
 
You’re confusing product and logistics. It would not take years. Does it take years when you order a laptop from say Dell? Nope. You get in a queue and get an estimated delivery date.

1. Nvidia is the main supplier of Founders Editions. They know exactly what they ordered from their sub contractor just as Dell knows what they ordered. They also are the main supplier of chips to third parties. So they know what they are distributing.

2. Scalpers are currently reliant on bots that catch supply drops in seconds. EVGA has created a waiting list of sorts. In this case each company would have time to validate the orders because you would get on a build que. Right now the bots have the advantage.

3. It would not take years. Moreover, if Nvidia doesn’t expect availability until December, and bots stole the first 3 early drops, how is getting an assured ship date a month or two away worse than hoping and praying you’re hitting F5 or have your own bot running when a drop happens? And then hoping the cart system works...etc etc.


Good lord... manufactures have done waiting and order lists for centuries for everything from houses to electronics. It’s not a new concept. And I mentioned Tesla because it came to mind. But it doesn’t have to be Tesla. How about Toyota? Or say Ranger Boats. It’s even MORE complicated with cars or say boats because of the parts involved and yet they manage to get your custom car made within a few weeks.

We bought new sofa's earlier this year easy enough you would think right? We had to wait 16 weeks for them to get delivered and they were just basic sofa's, nothing custom or anything.

Now you don't need fancy shennanigans for GPU's, you just need inventory at launch, they already stated that availability this year would be low so they should have waited till next year to launch them, easy as. Atm they can't even fullfil 10% of the demand, that's just pathetic.

The only thing they gained is beeing first and upsetting most of their client base, seems like a good thing to do for your business.
 
Comparing the difficulty of Tesla’s vehicle design to Nvidia’s consumer GPU is laughable. Tesla is not only designing, testing, and implementing their own chips and boards, they are also building the entire car around them. Hundreds of moving parts in addition in addition to regulatory testing and approval far exceeding that of a GPU card.
I did not mention Tesla anywhere in there? I was talking about Nvidia chips to the full Founders Edition cards.
 
Nvidia already has the logistics in place due to their professional, server, and AI sales. Adapting that to their consumer division is not a tall leap when you have a substantial amount brand damage occurring because an outside source is directly harming your customers. You can either take administrative action or legal action to stop the bleed. Since laws currently don’t support legal action, it comes down to administrative.

What is damaging their brand? Scalpers? Not their problem. Doesn't hurt Reebok, Nike, Banksy, etc... They're beholden to the stockholder, who's over the moon right now, and the board that is currently bathing in dollar bills.

The owners? They're happy. The folks who still want to buy one? Most of us will still buy one. The folks who can't afford one? Not customers. The folks who are irritated at the scalpers? So...?

Trust me, I wish I could back order one too, but it's not always that easy. And they don't particularly have a notable business reason to change their current plan - they're selling every chip they can make, and raking in cash hand over fist.
 
What is damaging their brand? Scalpers? Not their problem. Doesn't hurt Reebok, Nike, Banksy, etc... They're beholden to the stockholder, who's over the moon right now, and the board that is currently bathing in dollar bills.

The owners? They're happy. The folks who still want to buy one? Most of us will still buy one. The folks who can't afford one? Not customers. The folks who are irritated at the scalpers? So...?

Trust me, I wish I could back order one too, but it's not always that easy. And they don't particularly have a notable business reason to change their current plan - they're selling every chip they can make, and raking in cash hand over fist.

Just so you know, I'm enjoying our conversation. I don't mean to come off as insulting. Only being direct.

Brand Damage: Low inventory and high desire is one of the reasons 3DFX died. On a short term scalpers doesn't hurt your bottom line. On the very short term it bolsters it. But while short term profits are great for investor dividends and day traders, damage to the company reputation starves it of long term sustainability and erodes a customer base. Ask yourself, why the 3080 was priced at $699 instead of $999, and why did Jensen have to do a song a dance to 10 series owners? Why did they immediately have to enlist Digital Foundry to back up their claims? Because the Turing launch was THAT bad, and the pricing had eroded consumer confidence. Had Turing been more successful, they would now be reaping far greater profits from what should be one of their most successful and financially strong generations. Instead they are selling for pitiful profits which inevitably provide less capital for both R&D (ask ATI about that) and further brand erosion (3DFX) by having consumers focus on negative instead of positive experience. Additionally, it has opened a massive door for AMD to step in if they play their cards right, and gut a hole into a previous locked up market (see AMD Ryzen).

The owners: Of course they're happy. Some of this is bolstered by the lack of availability though. They may even subconsciously be increasing their satisfaction by knowing they are part of an elite so to speak.

The folks who still want them: Most is the key word. Most means lost sales. Most means lost brand. Most means opportunity for competitors to steal customers. You know what locks people in? A non-refundable $50 deposit with the guarantee of delivery. Customers who make purchases on this level will often actively ignore the competition because they want to reaffirm their choice, and only associate within an eco-chamber of reinforcement.

Folks who don't want one: They ARE customers. Anyone that desires your product is a customer. The trick is to retain them until they have the capital to buy. Two things typically happen: They save up the money, or they purchase a lesser but similar experience. This is lost opportunity. Now AMD has a chance convert these customers into clients. How do you save that? Third party payment plan with a reservation and non-refundable but small deposit, followed by motivational marketing.

Angry at scalpers: A small but viable potential base that could convert to sales that may have otherwise missed. People will do all sorts of things when they feel slighted. Scalpers are notoriously hated. Nvidia could flip these potentials into sales by a reservation program and pushing a message of screw the scalpers. It's a small drop in a bucket most likely, but it's also extra motivation for all other potential clients.

Again, the model you suggest has traded short term profits for long term sustainability which in itself is a valid model IF you have a long term reward to reap from it and no or little competition. But they do have competitors, and they don't have much to reap from allowing their products into the hands of scalpers other than short term profits. If they continue to take that business model, then they risk eroding their public value and ending up on the bad end of a holding company sale interested only in their IP. This is part of the reason that Nvidia NEEDS Arm.
 
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