News Nvidia Delays RTX 3070 By 2 Weeks to Avoid Another Disappointing Launch

[JamesSneed]

Nobody wants to have hundreds of thousands of cards sitting in warehouses for months in the run up to a launch, that is a huge expense and liability just to prevent scalping and price gouging by retailers which neither hurt or benefit the manufacturers.

They could have a nice happy medium like well you know many launches in prior history.

 

[JamesSneed]

Yeah, if they'd just tighten their belly muscles a bit more, I'm sure they could force those EUV lasers to etch the silicon wafers faster. Obviously there can't be any capacity constraints at the root of this.

No its not. These GPU chips are made on Samsung's 8nm node which is not EUV. Its only due to Nvidia pulling in the release to beat AMD. Usually Nvidia start production a little more than 2 months prior to a release not 1 month prior. They just didn't build up that much stock.

 

[GenericUser]

Except in my case, where I need one for me and one for the spouse.

If you don't mind me asking, what is it that you and your spouse do that you both "need" one of these particular cards? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you don't or can't "need" one of these. Maybe you both work from home/small business and do something that involves a heavy GPU workload.

But is that the goal? Perhaps I'm being myopic here, but I think my getting two and you getting none works just as well for Nvidia as you and I both getting one each.

Other factors aside, I believe that's a major reason right there that we haven't really seen too much effort put into effective anti-bot measures. At the end of the day, a sale is a sale, so why spend money implementing a system to say who the sale goes to, when you're going to get the same amount of money regardless?

 

[Endymio]

If you don't mind me asking, what is it that you and your spouse do that you both "need" one of these particular cards?

I probably should have said I need one and my spouse "wants" one. We have Titans in the office, but that's closed for Covid, and I'm limping along on a 2060 Super that really shouldn't be used for anything except gaming.

No its not. These GPU chips are made on Samsung's 8nm node which is not EUV.

You're absolutely right. And those DUV lasers are much more susceptible to belly-clenching than are the EUV ones. The point I think you're missing is that NVidia did build up stock. They just didn't build up enough to meet overwhelming demand. Had the card's performance been less spectacular, this wouldn't even be an issue. Would you prefer that?

 

[spongiemaster]

A. Given the 3080 is what, 30% faster than the $1200 card it supplants, a price of $900 would still have generated very favorable reviews.
B. Just in the past few months, I've seen dozens of stories on Toms alone about price drops. Your #1 news story right now is about a Coffee Lake price drop, a chip that's been out a couple of years now. If NVidia dropped prices significantly 30 days after release, it would be headline news on every site.

They would have sold out equally quickly at $900. The $1500+ 3090 sold out instantly. There was no way to get an accurate estimate of what the real world demand was going to be for these cards and Nvidia got it way wrong. They screwed up by not allowing preorders. You still wouldn't have gotten one on day 1, but at least you're in a queue to get one eventually. It would have also reduced the incentive for scalpers, because anyone in a queue with a rough estimate delivery date is not a potential customer. Now, there's basically a wack-a-mole situation where cards will pop up a little while on a website, and people have to hope they were lucky to access the website at that moment, which is a ridiculous way to shop.

 

[eklipz330]

Seems like the media and hype are forcing a perceived benefit of delaying when actually none exists. If they can have X number available by 29th October that doesn’t change if they start selling on the 15th October, it just delays getting to market. There might be a perception of a better launch but they won’t have any more cards to market come 29th October.

What kind of logic is this? The more that are available, the more will be sold legitimately to buyers rather than scalpers, driving prices down closer to MSRP.

If your argument was true, might as well start selling as soon as they have 1 off the production line because "no benefit exists if they have X number available by 29th October."

RTX 3080 was released extremely prematurely, only have a few thousand available for the entire planet.

 

[sizzling]

What kind of logic is this? The more that are available, the more will be sold legitimately to buyers rather than scalpers, driving prices down closer to MSRP.

If your argument was true, might as well start selling as soon as they have 1 off the production line because "no benefit exists if they have X number available by 29th October."

RTX 3080 was released extremely prematurely, only have a few thousand available for the entire planet.

It’s easier for scalpers bots to target a bigger launch. If you release over 2weeks at random times they cannot target sites at specific times. Nothing about this is going to reduce the success rate of bots. It’s giving them a bigger easier target.

 

[Endymio]

If your argument was true, might as well start selling as soon as they have 1 off the production line...

You mean, like the Just-in-Time manufacturing technique that Tesla and many other modern producers now use? Stocking up massive inventory beforehand is a very antiquated business method.

 

[spongiemaster]

You mean, like the Just-in-Time manufacturing technique that Tesla and many other modern producers now use? Stocking up massive inventory beforehand is a very antiquated business method.

You place an order for a car and it shows up when it does. You don't camp out at dealers hoping you're there when the delivery truck shows up with one or two.

 

[Endymio]

You place an order for a car and it shows up when it does.

You can do that with NVidia also. And your wait for a 3080 will be shorter than what people endured for Tesla's Model S.

 

[spongiemaster]

You can do that with NVidia also. And your wait for a 3080 will be shorter than what people endured for Tesla's Model S.

Really? Where can you order a 3080?

Here's the link to order a Model S

https://www.tesla.com/models/design#battery

 

[GenericUser]

You don't camp out at dealers hoping you're there when the delivery truck shows up with one or two.

Maybe if you're an Apple fanatic.

 

[Endymio]

Really? Where can you order a 3080?

Here's the link to order a Model S

Here's the link to order a 3080:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shop/geforce/?page=1&limit=9&locale=en-us

Press the "Notify" button and they'll tell you when you can order. You'll get it far faster than the first customers for the Model S, I promise you.

Look, I understand the situation. There's a whole bunch of kids outside the Willy Wonka factory, clamoring for that new chocolate bar that's thirty percent bigger and half the price. We all want one, but some of us are going to have to wait. Some of the kids are upset and crying and blaming Willy for making such a great piece of candy. But let's try to be mature about the situation and have a little perspective.

 

[spongiemaster]

Here's the link to order a 3080:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shop/geforce/?page=1&limit=9&locale=en-us

Press the "Notify" button and they'll tell you when you can order. You'll get it far faster than the first customers for the Model S, I promise you.

Look, I understand the situation. There's a whole bunch of kids outside the Willy Wonka factory, clamoring for that new chocolate bar that's thirty percent bigger and half the price. We all want one, but some of us are going to have to wait. Some of the kids are upset and crying and blaming Willy for making such a great piece of candy. But let's try to be mature about the situation and have a little perspective.

Just no. There's no guaranteed spot in line with a notify button. By the time you get the email, they will be sold out.

 

[neojack]

they could just open pre-orders on their website, with 10% of the total due at the pre-order. refundable minus 10-15$ admin fee
and send a daily email telling position in the queue.

99% of buyers would prefer this solution rather than buy 8000$ cards on ebay
scalpers's problem solved.

Nvidia gets more money since people are engaged with them, much less likely to give up, buy AMD or a used 1000-series


Tesla and many others do this.

 

[spongiemaster]

they could just open pre-orders on their website, with 10% of the total due at the pre-order. refundable minus 10-15$ admin fee
and send a daily email telling position in the queue.

99% of buyers would prefer this solution rather than buy 8000$ cards on ebay
scalpers's problem solved.

Nvidia gets more money since people are engaged with them, much less likely to give up, buy AMD or a used 1000-series


Tesla and many others do this.

Exactly.

 

[InvalidError]

they could just open pre-orders on their website, with 10% of the total due at the pre-order. refundable minus 10-15$ admin fee
and send a daily email telling position in the queue.

A daily status update is pointless. Unless there has been a major supply chain disruption, your ship date is unlikely to change by more than one business day.

And if you do a strict in-order queue, you still get scalpers clumping up at the head of queue, which does not help with getting cards directly into normal people's hands. If I was managing direct online sales, I'd split something like 40% of production to fulfilling orders in-order and the other 60% randomized over the lead time window at the time of order based on the 40% rate. Got 10k units ready to go, ship the first 4k in-order to make sure I stay ahead of lead time quotes, randomize the rest.

 

[cryoburner]

Seems like the media and hype are forcing a perceived benefit of delaying when actually none exists. If they can have X number available by 29th October that doesn’t change if they start selling on the 15th October, it just delays getting to market. There might be a perception of a better launch but they won’t have any more cards to market come 29th October.

Yep, though if the cards AMD announces on the 28th look great, it might reduce some of the initial demand for the 3070, as many people may hold out on a purchase until both cards have been reviewed, helping spread out sales over a little longer period of time. I do suspect they still won't have the supply to prevent them from selling out instantaniously though. It also prevents AMD from claiming during their announcement that a particular card is a certain percentage faster than a 3070 if that card is not publicly available yet.

The point I think you're missing is that NVidia did build up stock. They just didn't build up enough to meet overwhelming demand. Had the card's performance been less spectacular, this wouldn't even be an issue.

It was rumored prior to launch that supply was going to be abysmal, and would remain that way for months. And all indications are that there were in fact not many cards to go around, and that board partners didn't even get adequate time to test their cards for stability.

It seems more like Nvidia knew AMD's cards were going to be competitive with their top-end models this time around, and rushed a release at lower-than-planned prices before having adequate supply available just to avoid having AMD get all the positive press for launching a "2080 Ti killer" at a significantly lower price.

 

[Chung Leong]

Not if you use the credit card's billing address for the address check, then you are still limited to only one GPU per store regardless of how many credit cards you have.

Do banks actually verify the address when you register a gift card?

 

[InvalidError]

Do banks actually verify the address when you register a gift card?

Pre-paid cards? Varies by state/country. Many banks use different IINs for prepaid vs regular cards, so that's one way that could be used to reject pre-paid cards for launches.

Most people are likely buying online anyway, which means you need to put a shipping address on record too.

 

[Endymio]

It was rumored prior to launch that supply was going to be abysmal, and would remain that way for months.

Either that is true, or it is false:

-- If false, we should obviously discount it entirely.
-- If true, then NVidia has a long-term systemic problem with supply from Samsung, which would make the only solution to either raise the price of cards significantly (as I suggested earlier in the thread) or to hold off the entire release for several months to build up supply -- which no manufacturer can afford to do, and would have made you the end users equally upset.

In short- all the crying exists because NVidia made a product that was too good at too cheap a price. I'm sure they'd love to have Samsung turn over the entirety of their fab capability to them. But it ain't gonna happen.

Most people are likely buying online anyway, which means you need to put a shipping address on record too.

I'm sure most scalpers know quite a few other people who would receive a product for them. Even without resorting to that, most addresses can be listed in several different manners and still be valid.

 

[sizzling]

It was rumored prior to launch that supply was going to be abysmal,

I’ve seen a couple of reputable reviewers saying the evidence is volumes were equal to those at the launch of the 2000 series. The shortage is through pent up demand (pc building has seen an increase during the pandemic), a very good product at a surprisingly reasonable price and obviously scalpers bots.

 

[InvalidError]

I'm sure most scalpers know quite a few other people who would receive a product for them. Even without resorting to that, most addresses can be listed in several different manners and still be valid.

Having to use a different card for each order and finding someone to receive each order would at least make scalpers work that much harder for their money. For the address, automated mail sorting machines deal with hand-written addresses that give you way more freedom in how to write addresses than an online order form. I'm sure an e-tailer can sanitize and normalize street names then look up outstanding orders within that zip code for similar street names. The USPS likely has an API somewhere that does all of this including ZIP+4.

 

[DaveTea]

Seems like the media and hype are forcing a perceived benefit of delaying when actually none exists. If they can have X number available by 29th October that doesn’t change if they start selling on the 15th October, it just delays getting to market. There might be a perception of a better launch but they won’t have any more cards to market come 29th October.

Seems like you have no clue whatsoever about manufacturing and supply! If they can have X number available on 29th, why on Earth do you think they'll have the same amount two weeks before that, and have not added to their inventory with two weeks' worth of production? They will have X amount available on 15th, but will have two weeks worth of production to add to that number by 29th, so of course they will have more available, it's obvious to anyone with a brain! I agree that there may not be any real benefit, as they'll probably sell out almost as quickly anyway, but they WILL have more available to sell.

 

[DaveTea]

I'm certain Nvidia could get enough stock to stay ahead of outages if they wanted. Of course AMD announcing the day before might also shift some sales away if the cards are really good. I'm just going to hang and watch it play out. I do want to replace my 1070 but not going to hurry this purchase.

Someone else with no clue about manufacturing and supply! What a dumb comment to make. So you think nVidea had many more cards available, but didn't put them out to sell?!?!? REALLY? Are you insane? Every single card in a box would have been out there. There is no reason, economic or otherwise, to hold back stock as you think. Or you think they could have made more to sell, but decided not to??? Did you actually read your post before posting it?