Nvidia's most powerful graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3090 began selling recently and, as with the RTX 3080, sold out quickly. The leading GPU manufacturer once again ran into unexpectedly high demand. While it seems less serious of an outage than that of the RTX 3080, many are venting frustration at the repeat performance.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 sold out within seconds of launch. Soon after emails went out to eager buyers inviting them to purchase. As expected this led to confusion, then outrage at the horrible timing. Nvidia apologized and explained that demand was unprecedented, causing their ordering system to overload. Apparently, the email notifications went out after the server situation was rectified. Unfortunately, bots and scalpers had a field day and bought up large quantities. Nvidia cancelled hundreds of invalid orders, yet still couldn't meet demand.

Related: GeForce RTX 3080: Nvidia Explains Why The GPU Was Suddenly Out Of Stock

Learning that its graphics cards are popular, as if that was unclear before, Nvidia apologized in advance for what would clearly be insufficient supply of the second RTX 30 series card to launch. The RTX 3090 is the most expensive new GeForce card at $1499, but it did indeed sell out quickly. The RTX 3090 is the first GPU that supports 8K HDR gaming. 8K is not simply double the resolution of 4K. This 8K GPU pushes four times as many pixels, which is quite remarkable. With 10,496 CUDA cores and 24GB of cutting-edge GDDR6X memory, it’s currently the world’s fastest graphics card. Nvidia said, "Since we built GeForce RTX 3090 for a unique group of users, like the TITAN RTX before it, we want to apologise upfront that this will be in limited supply on launch day. We know this is frustrating, and we’re working with our partners to increase the supply in the weeks to come." Presumably, the sold out status was not caused by bots this time, since Nvidia claimed to be taking care of that issue.

Reactions To The Issue

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090

Whether those that snatched up this powerhouse will have 8K monitors is unknown, but some seem to want to turn a quick profit on eBay. Scalpers are already quite active with some bids into the tens of thousands already. At the time of writing an auction ended with a final bid of $79,320. That is over fifty times the retail price of the product! Twitter expressed both anger, frustration and resignment. In the Nvidia forums, several thwarted shoppers shared negative comments about their experience. A comment by Simk1n complained, "Then if you are 'lucky' you can get it in the cart, but it stops at the cart for most people. Seems like only a very few people got through the buying process. 3080 launch 0/10, 3090 launch 0/10. Way to go nvidia."

There is little reason for Nvidia to play games with customers, though some conspiracy theorists put forth the idea of purposely restricting supply to drive up prices. So far, it seems to be only scalpers benefitting the most. While Nvidia is likely pleased to be selling quickly, it would much prefer to meet demand and keep customers happy. As stated by Nvidia, the RTX 3090 was not expected to be as in demand as the RTX 3080. The lowest priced GPU, the RTX 3070 should have the most sales. Whether Nvidia will be able to stock well enough to last through a whole day is beginning to seem unlikely. The budget Nvidia 30 Series card that is more powerful than the previous generation's best is expected to begin selling on October 15th, though that date isn't official.

Next: Nvidia Just Bought Arm: What Will The Deal Mean For The GPU Market?

Source: NvidiaNvidia Forum