It’s over. It’s finally over! No, not the EVGA queue, although that is mostly ending as well. We’re talking about the multi-year GPU shortage. It seems to be officially over, or at least very close to being a distant memory. The proof is EVGA’s queue system for 30-series GPUs has finally ended, for now. It was the company’s reaction to the GPU shortage, where you sign up then wait to get notified when your requested GPU becomes available. The reason behind it ending is simple: GPUs are now in stock, so it’s unnecessary. The company will continue to use the queue for “in-demand” products, for the near future. As far as we can tell that only applies to some of its RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti cards.
We found out about this because your humble author has been in the queue for an RTX 3080, since 2020. I remember signing up in September of that year, right after the disappointing launch with Best Buy. That was when it dawned on all of us, at the same time, that we weren’t going to be able to just buy a GPU like we did before. This is when stock channels on Discord appeared, and GPU hunting suddenly became a part-time job for some. The email from EVGA notifying me of the queue’s discontinuation was brief. “Now that EVGA has sufficient stock on 30 series at EVGA.com and at ETAIL/RETAIL partners, starting June 23rd 2022, all pending queue notifies on EVGA [SKU name here] will be removed and the product will be made available for purchase as supply continues to arrive.” In a cruel twist of fate though, the card I wanted (the basic one with no RGB) is out of stock. EVGA does have several RTX 3080 cards in stock though, and some are even below MSRP.
This follows Nvidia announcing in April that its 30-sereies GPUs were “Restocked and Reloaded.” Now that EVGA has decided it no longer needs a queue for most 30-series cards, we have officially returned to the olden days. You know the ones; where you could just buy the GPU wanted online without any drama. In fact, we’ve moved beyond that in some ways. Like the screenshot above shows, there’s a lot of high-end GPUs that are selling for less than MSRP now. PCWorld even flagged an RX 6900 XT on Newegg that was a whopping $350 off MSRP. Sure, part of that is a $100 rebate, but that’s a smokin’ price. It should also be noted that the infamous Newegg Shuffle seems to be on hiatus as well. The last shuffle was on May 10th, with no updates since.
The sudden influx of GPUs is the result of the recent catastrophic crashes in crypto prices. We posted in May that crypto was suffering a bloodbath, and it’s just gotten worse since then. Last week was the second wave, and it sent prices so low miners around the world have begun to dismantle their rigs. The reason why it’s so bad now is because electricity has gotten expensive too. When you couple that with dwindling crypto prices, the whole operation doesn’t make mathematical sense any more.
(image: Twitter)
Unfortunately, not every RTX 30-series is in-stock, so don’t get the wrong impression. We can’t find any RTX 3060 Tis in-stock on EVGA’s site, but both models of regular 3060 are up for grabs. The high-end cards are definitely available though. The super high-end though, that’s still in a queue. Instead of high demand though, it’s probably just due to the exceedingly low supply. Oddly those cards are available on Newegg though, and at or under MSRP.
Overall, there have been many signs lately that things are starting to return to normal in the GPU world. The end of EVGA’s queue for its 30-series cards is another one. Obviously at this point it’s tempting to just wait a bit longer for both AMD and Nvidia’s next-generation of cards. However, do you think you’ll be able to get one at launch, at a reasonable price? Nobody knows the answer, but even though mining might be going away there’s still bots out there that make a living doing this. So my advice is if a GPU that’s available now can push your monitor at the rate you desire, and the price is right, pull the trigger. That is if you’re dying for an upgrade. If you’re still limping along with something halfway decent you’re probably better off waiting a bit.
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