RTX 3080 Launch

After a week of sitting in Discord servers, refreshing pages, etc. I'm out.

Gonna checkout the 3070 launch/around that time to see 3080 availability. But this really isn't worth it. My 1080 is limping along at 3440, but I can stretch it if I need to and the next consoles will run stuff a little better anyway WITH HDR so.

Gonna check back in Nov/Dec and hope stock as stabilized and hopefully the retailer upcharge isn't huge. I'd pay 900-1000max for a 3080 but anything more is pushing it.

Well "yes" but according to reviews they have locked the bios/drivers so it's not as good at certain things as the rtx titan. For some reason it's a titan marketed as a gaming card but with titan features cut out at a driver level. Maybe that will change though. Check reviews for more info.

Well, for those unable to score a 3080 at the moment, there's an upside: Missing out on buying a flaky GPU!

The TLDR version is that AIB partners like Gigabyte and MSI are using different (read: cheaper) capacitors than the Founders Edition 3080s, which can cause power delivery issues when the GPU clock speeds get high enough, which in turn causes instability, crashing to desktop, and other assorted wonkiness.

Hmm. I was already planning to go with an FE just because I think the Nvidia design looks better than what partners are coming up with. One more reason now, I guess, but still waiting to see some cooler performance comparisons.

Well you gotta hand it to nvidia. You can't regret your purchases if you can't make any purchases at all.

Well, it might not get better anytime soon. A friend linked me to some rumors yesterday and it looks like PCGamer has now run an article confirming some of it (https://www.pcgamer.com/tech-tariffs-and-scarcity-add-up-to-big-pc-hardware-price-hikes-and-asus-is-kicking-it-off/) saying that the expiration of the tariff exemptions from our war with China will increase the prices of cards. From what I could tell, it looks like the scalpers are adjusting their business model accordingly so it’s a nightmare all around. Starting your 3080s over $900 is insane.

I am really regretting when I chose to rebuild my PC and have learned my lesson but we’re coming up on four months since launch and even with a scraper bot at my side I still haven’t managed to come CLOSE to finding a card. Sigh.

@inspectorfowler: I wonder what they will try and charge for the new cards about to release.

Trade embargo's may change when the new administration takes office (if there is no successful coup attempt) so that may change things again. Who knows, the recession also hasn't hit yet so no clue what that will do either.

May end up being best to wait 6 months to a year.

Not like this prices the 3080 out of my range, but it is fucking disgusting. Losing all of these cards to bots and scalpers, and now having to deal with a price increase from an idiot president who doesn't understand how trade works feels bad. I'm going to stick with my 1080 for the foreseeable future. It's frustrating. 2020 sucked and everything about 2021 so far has also been yikes.

I had a mid tier 1070 system previously and was able to get a 3080 in the first wave by getting a prebuilt system. It doesn’t help with these price hikes, but if you really need an upgrade that may be a viable path to getting one.

@tunnelman: I do wish I had done that but due to some bad timing I built a pretty great system in late August anticipating at least sort of reasonable availability for the new GPUs a few weeks later. I even got a PCIe 4.0 MOBO and a PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2TB SSD - I felt so fancy! It cost me a ton of OT (thanks to mandatory OT I worked 245 hours of paid OT and about 100 hours of comp OT last year).

For routine work it obviously kicks butt, but a 1080 really throttles it if we’re talking about MSFS 2020, Cyberpunk, etc. Didn’t even try Cyberpunk, actually :(

In the scope of overall life it’s bleh - I have way worse stuff going on in terms of family health and I know people who are really struggling right now. But I’m 43 and I can’t remember a time when - nearly four months after launch - I couldn’t find a video card :(

@inspectorfowler: I did the same thing (4.0 MOBO +4.0 NVME) but cheaped out on graphics and cpu knowing better stuff was down the road. I mean i'm not struggling with a 2070s and ryzen 5 3600, but I was really just buying decent stuff that I could re-sell later when the 3080 and Ryzen 5000 series components became available. I honestly thought at this point they would have been radially available (well the 3080 anyway, we'll see if the Ryzen 5000 series chips start trickling in).

I was thinking, wouldn't it have been better for them to postpone the launch of other cards and just use the chips on the ones they have? Honestly, is a 3060 necessary right now? Especially when it's rumored to be better than the TI which makes 0 sense at all to me. I guess it could be good for those who haven't gotten a card yet to get a better one (depending on the prices but they seem to be going up anyway).

I ended up cracking and ordered an Alienware Aurora R11 with a 3080 in it. I've been a hardcore DIYer since I got into PC gaming and this is my first prebuilt. Feels bad paying a premium for a dumbass brand name, but dell seems to have a reliable supply of 3080s, and literally everything has a massive markup on it in the current market.

I ordered it on Jan 2nd and it has already shipped so I'll have a 3080 within a week. YAY!

If anyone is interested in the plebian prebuilt path, dell gives you a flat 10% discount if you sign up for their newsletter.

They are supposedly delaying the 3080ti's now, but the 3060 is still coming out and has more vram than the ti version. Seems like they had no clue what they wanted to do this gen tbh.

As long as you can get a good price on your old stuff on ebay, that's a good way to go right now sadly. I would go with another brand though, but as long as the price per performance works for you.