Uh, what? Scalpers are now asking people for more than $ 2000 to own Nvidia’s RTX 3080?
Unfortunately, the constant shortage of the latest computer cards is causing prices for Nvidia’s RTX 3000 GPUs to reach alarming new heights on eBay.
Since mid-September, scalpers have been selling the RTX 3080 on eBay for about $ 1,300 to $ 1,500, which is almost double the original cost of $ 699 to $ 869, depending on the model. But over the last few weeks, the prices for the graphics cards in demand have only gone insane.
Credit: Michael Driscoll
To understand the full extent of scalping, a computer engineer named Michael Driscoll in Chicago tracked GPU sales on eBay using a computer script. On Tuesday, he told us that the median price for the RTX 3080 is now $ 2,069.
The average prices on eBay for all the RTX 3000 cards started to rise in February. In the case of the RTX 3080, the cost increased to about $ 2400. The RTX 3070, on the other hand, peaked at more than $ 1200.
Credit: Michael Driscoll
The numbers only started to drop last week at the same time as Nvidia launched its most affordable entry in the RTX 3000 series, the 3060, which starts at $ 329.
“Prices stopped rising exactly when the 3060 started, so it can not be coincidental,” Driscoll told us. “Not a big drop, but significant. For the increases, I can not confirm this, but I know that many employers hand out the year-end bonuses in February, and people start filing and receiving tax returns, which can cause the price increase.
Credit: Michael Driscoll
The insanity has also carried over to AMD’s latest Radeon graphics cards. Scalpers on eBay are now hawking them for about double the normal cost.
EBay prices have also risen as GPU vendors themselves – such as Asus, EVGA and MSI – raise prices for the new graphics cards thanks to rising component costs and a 25% Trump-era tariff re-enacting for certain Chinese imports . .
Another possible factor is the increase in cryptocurrency mining, which will likely create more customers for the scalpers on eBay. If we think someone is paying more than $ 2,000 for a single computer card, that’s bothering us.
Finally, it’s a dark time to be a computer builder. To improve your chances of buying a GPU at a normal price, we recommend that you use a free online inventory checker or check out Newegg’s lottery system.