It’s not uncommon for the latest computer hardware to fail, but the pandemic has driven everything to an excessive extent. Holding on for months on end has led to an explosion of interest in games, making new hardware such as the AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Nvidia RTX 3000 GPUs almost impossible. Newegg has a controversial solution: lotteries.
If you were now looking for an Nvidia RTX 3080, you would be able to buy one right away. However, you will probably have to pay about double the retail price to a scalper on eBay or Amazon. This has been the case for months. Sitting on your (presumably old and broken) computer and buying a component on demand is not a great way to spend your quarantine, so Newegg is trying something new.
This week, the website briefly posted a page explaining its solution. It took down the page shortly thereafter, but not before the wider internet got a glimpse. The “Newegg Shuffle” event allows interested customers to join a lottery for certain parts during a three-hour window. Sometimes it will be bundles of multiple components that include the very popular AMD and Nvidia hardware, and other times it will be just those components on their own.
I advocate a lottery system for high-demand PC parts like the # RTX3080, so it’s great to see @Newegg finally implement it. But the combination of ‘offers’ must be turned off. Can’t build an AMD + Nvidia computer without buying an Intel motherboard. # failed #AMD #Nvidia # Intel pic.twitter.com/HeQjypjWsR
– Richard (@RyuGTX) 20 January 2021
Newegg will sign up and those who win the lottery will be contacted by email to complete their purchases. Products are sold to winners on a first-come-first-served basis, and you will only have two hours to complete your purchase before Newegg goes to the next person on the list. With this system, you do not have to hope that you happen to be watching when new stock pops up and that you can beat everyone else to the point of payment. Instead, you should hope that Newegg’s random number generator benefits you.
There was a clear aggravation on the internet when Newegg’s page came into use. The only bundle with an RTX 3080 has an Intel motherboard and Intel CPUs do not exactly have a shortage. Newegg later explained that it was just a ‘test’ to get feedback and improve the system. The retailer says future Shuffle events will include single items in addition to combinations. However, we do not know when it will be. This may still be the best chance of getting a CPU or GPU for the foreseeable future.
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