News about Nvidia’s new RTX 30 Series has dominated the headlines lately, but not exclusively in the best of ways. While the benchmarks for 3080s have proven impressive, the potential for actually getting one have been slim to none. Nvidia claims that stock is similar in volume to the launch of the RTX 20 Series. However, demand for the latest 3080 cards has proven unprecedented. Scalpers, eager customers, and bots alike have swarmed retailers to claim cards within seconds or minutes of availability. The dilemma has forced manufacturers to open up public dialogues about exactly when more cards will become available.
Jacob Freeman, the EVGA global product management director, took to Twitter to answer specific questions in regards to its own RTX 3080 availability.
For 3080 it could be any time. And yes, thousands.
— Jacob Freeman (@EVGA_JacobF) September 19, 2020
As early as September 19, Freeman began detailing what customers could expect in the following week. The official statements about EVGA RTX 3080 availability are changing by the hour still, but here’s what we know as of now: stock for thousands of cards will be made available across the span of this week. Freeman also stated that we can expect availability to resume every few days. This echoes similar statements from Nvidia and other AIBs, so it sounds like the best thing you can do to find a 3080 right now is to check back frequently.
When and where
Initial stocking and restocking will span EVGA, Amazon, Newegg, and more. Freeman also replied to questions related to Micro Center and Best Buy specifically, so those are another two confirmed retailers receiving shipments. Freeman clarified that 6 AM PT is when to expect availability refreshes (at least from EVGA directly). That’s when you will want to be at your PC hitting F5 on retailer pages. The best you can hope for is to be the right person that clicks at the right time. If you do see availability, it goes without saying that you should claim one immediately.
More news is good news
Freeman also provided some valuable insight about specific products. It sounds like most of the incoming stock this week will be the base XC3 variants. However, EVGA should restock the FTW3 models sometime this week too. Furthermore, the FTW3 Ultras may “possibly” arrive this week, but as already mentioned, a lot of this information is changing by the hour.
We do however know that the RTX 3090 models will become available starting on September 24 at 6 AM PT from EVGA. At least that’s the current plan, according to Freeman. What’s more interesting though, is that he detailed several more exotic cooling solutions coming soon. The Hydro Copper 3080 water blocks are expected to arrive sometime in November, while the Hybrid 3080 is expected mid-to-late October.
In one final juicy tidbit of information, Freeman mentioned the 3070 launch is on schedule for October. As you may recall, that’s in line with Nvidia’s own 3070 launch. Hopefully that will go better than the 3080 fiasco, but we expect demand for these new cards will remain very high through the rest of the year at least.
Published: Sep 21, 2020 04:30 pm