GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Cards Now 'Available' But Insane Retailer Pricing Leaves Us Flummoxed
We decided to do a quick check at the usual online retail suspects for selling graphics cards, including Best Buy and Newegg. Best Buy only has two GeForce RTX 3070 Ti cards on the books: NVIDIA's Founders Edition and the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Things don't look too out of the ordinary with the Founders Edition, with its price listed at $599.99 (MSRP).
However, the ASUS card leaves us shaking our heads as it's priced at a staggering $949.99. That's $350 more expensive than the Founders Edition. Even if we consider the custom boards and higher clocks for third-party cards, $350 is an outrageous premium to pay for the ASUS card from a retailer, especially from Best Buy.
Things aren't much different at Newegg, which shows that every single GeForce RTX 3070 Ti card that it sells is out of stock (a total of 16 cards). While some basic cards from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and EVGA are priced at $599, they are outliers. Most cards are priced at $699 and above. There are several cards priced at $799 and $899, with some surpassing $900. The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 Ti takes the cake with a price tag of $999 (plus $9.99 shipping to pour salt on the wounds). That's a full $400 above the MSRP for a bone stock Founders Edition card.
If anyone believed that NVIDIA's Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) family of dedicated Ethereum cards and the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) Series would improve the supply of GeForce cards for gamers, this pricing is an obvious sign that demand is still far outstripping supply (in part due to the global chip shortage).
To add insult to injury, people who did manage to score a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti today will likely soon start flooding marketplaces like eBay. Although it's still early in the day, one listing is already active, selling the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3070 Ti for $1,699 + $19.99 shipping.
When will this madness end??
