Nvidia tries to explain the messy Geforce RTX 3080 launch

Geforce RTX 3080 was launched at 15:00 on September 17 and availability has been problematic to say the least. Nvidia has now published answers to some recurring questions where they go into how it could be like this.

Over 50 major global retailers had inventory on the day of launch. Our retail partners reported record traffic to their sites, in many cases exceeding Black Friday. This caused crashes, delays and other issues for their customers. We knew the GeForce RTX 3080 would be popular, but none of us expected that much traffic on the first day.

That the demand was enormous and exposed the retailers’ websites to enormous pressure, we at the editorial office can easily confirm. Few e-commerce sites felt great at launch, which is a phenomenon that the undersigned has never experienced at a graphics card launch before.

We have great supply – just not for this level of demand.

On the other hand, Nvidia seems to be a bit at odds with the truth when it comes to how many cards were available judging by the reports we received from Swedish retailers. The retailers mean that it was largely a regular launch in terms of number of products, which means “far too few cards in the usual order of course“according to a dealer we spoke to.

Regarding so-called “scalpers“Nvidia says that they canceled hundreds of orders before the products had time to leave the company’s warehouse. They also make it clear that they are already working on improvements to their own e-commerce solution to prevent problems at future launches.

Regarding how best to get over a Geforce RTX 3080 from now on, Nvidia refers to their “product finder“, but in Sweden this function only leads to a collection of links with Swedish retailers who have the card in their range.

No information is currently offered when we can expect the next wave of deliveries or when Nvidia believes that they can catch up with demand. It is worth noting that Nvidia has removed the opportunity to book, buy or register interest in Founders Editionversion of Geforce RTX 3080 on its Swedish website. Likewise, many of the resellers Nvidia links to have stopped taking orders for the time being, which is a very rare measure in this context.

Do you think this graphics card launch stands out from the crowd or is it “business as usual”?