RTX-30xxx - price gouging in the UK - I thought it was illegal?

[Terbinator]

Two preorders on Scan currently for 299 for 3060. One in stock, Zotac, is 360:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...re-1320mhz-gpu

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...re-1320mhz-gpu

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/zota...gpu-1807mhz-bo

Edit: Gone.

[cptwhite_uk]

I was refreshing Scan, OCUK, Currys, Ebuyer and Amazon. Only stock I saw was on Scan and Amazon, both had sold out within about 30 seconds.

Edit, seems CCL have 2 models available at the moment, but I'm not paying £500 for 2070/2070 Super like performance, links for people who are willing:

https://www.cclonline.com/product/34...-Card/VGA6055/

https://www.cclonline.com/product/34...-Card/VGA6059/

[LSG501]

Two preorders on Scan currently for 299 for 3060. One in stock, Zotac, is 360:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...re-1320mhz-gpu

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...re-1320mhz-gpu

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/zota...gpu-1807mhz-bo

Edit: Gone.

Yeah I was refreshing and literally watched the descriptions change between refreshes.... cheap 'advertising' sticking it in the description and then upping the price right before (3 showing 299 at 4, by 4.30 it was just 1 and by 4.50 there was none) selling it, rather shady imo.

Pretty sure I actually saw some of the prices change between refreshes before the buy button even came up... almost like the prices were being increased along with demand, these supply issues are really starting to bring out the 'bad side' of companies imo.

[ik9000]

I got one almost into the basket then it was "no longer available to add to basket" on Scan. I see they have also removed the three £299 models from their page entirely.

These things are now going for more than the 3060ti FE and what you used to be able to get 3060ti AIBs for. It's a joke.

Edit, for the record, these were the Scan prices at just after 5pm on launch day 25th Feb 2021



The £299 zotac is already missing but the other two are still there. (The £359 Zotac is the OC edition.)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I got one almost into the basket then it was "no longer available to add to basket" on Scan. I see they have also removed the three £299 models from their page entirely.

These things are now going for more than the 3060ti FE and what you used to be able to get 3060ti AIBs for. It's a joke.

Edit, for the record, these were the Scan prices at just after 5pm on launch day 25th Feb 2021



The £299 zotac is already missing but the other two are still there. (The £359 Zotac is the OC edition.)

They did it 5 minutes to 5PM. Then it was only the £360 one,which you can't buy. So it seems the £299 RPP was a load of nonsense from Nvidia. You could get a few RTX3060TI FE GPUs for £369 on launch day at least.

[Andi-C]

I too had one in my basket, then said "no longer available".

I see one has ended up on eBay already saying "confirmed border from Scan"...

[ik9000]

I too had one in my basket, then said "no longer available".

I see one has ended up on eBay already saying "confirmed border from Scan"...

there are several. Confirmed from Amazon, ebuyer, scan etc. The scan one is £825 for a 3060 MSi X-trio card that was £460 from Scan, and overpriced even then! FFS what a joke.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

there are several. Confirmed from Amazon, ebuyer, scan etc. The scan one is £825 for a 3060 MSi X-trio card that was £460 from Scan, and overpriced even then! FFS what a joke.

When you had fools on HUKD pimping the £400 pre-order yesterday for a lower end Palit RTX3060,you knew the other retailers would also take note.

This £299.99 price is blatant false advertising as there is not even an FE model at RRP,Nvidia can point to. This is the sort of crap Trading Standards need to investigate and possibly fine Nvidia for. It's like with sale prices,you HAVE to have an item at a specific price beforehand to advertise a discount.

Me and another mate were directly on the Scan website and saw the models advertised at £299,and a few minutes before 5PM had the "£299" vanish. The cheapest I saw in the UK was £360!

No review site should be pointing to the blatantly false RRPs advertised by these companies.

[ik9000]

When you had fools on HUKD pimping the £400 pre-order yesterday for a lower end Palit RTX3060,you knew the other retailers would also take note.

This £299.99 price is blatant false advertising as there is not even an FE model at RRP,Nvidia can point to. This is the sort of crap Trading Standards need to investigate and possibly fine Nvidia for. It's like with sale prices,you HAVE to have an item at a specific price beforehand to advertise a discount.

Me and another mate were directly on the Scan website and saw the models advertised at £299,and a few minutes before 5PM had the "£299" vanish. The cheapest I saw in the UK was £360!

No review site should be pointing to the blatantly false RRPs advertised by these companies.

they edited the title yes, but they did list it for £299 for all of the blink of an eye and I couldn't get it into the basket to checkout with.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

they edited the title yes, but they did list it for £299 for all of the blink of an eye and I couldn't get it into the basket to checkout with.

So basically there was no stock which is more false advertising. Also when it comes to sales discounts the previous price has to be held for a certain time period too.

All they need to do is list it on pre-order for half a second,so they don't even need stock.

Edit!!

If this sort of nonsense does not fix itself over the next 9 months,I am done with any sort of modern PC gaming. Can use an old GPU for the old titles I still like,and none GPU intensive Indie titles. Best to get a console,as Sony and MS seem to actually care about gamers. AMD and Nvidia now consider gamers as whales to improve their margins,and actively want anyone who won't pay their high prices to go and buy a console,or use their tablet,etc.

As AMD said they want to be a "premium" brand like Apple wants to,and Nvidia has shown admiration for(IIRC). Unlike smartphones,there is no alternative to this price fixing cartel,so it seems IGPs are what is left for PC gamers not wanting to spend £400+ on relatively anaemic dGPUs.

It's frankly pathethic PCMR has to pay beyond the odds for rubbish hardware,which barely beats a console.

Do people really think that a RTX3060 can beat a 40CU PS5 GPU,let alone a 56CU XBox Series X one? Even DF said the former was closer to an RTX2070/RTX2070 Super and the desktop RX6800/RX6800XT clearly has some software optimisation issues.

Wait another year and see what happens,when console games move to the new consoles as lead platforms,and the AMD optimisation problems/teething issues get worked around(especially WRT to RT performance).

So PCMR ends up paying well beyond RRP for subpar hardware yet again. They are not even honest about the REAL prices so they can lie about their PR wins.

Second Edit!!

Also expect AMD to talk more about stupid F1 and their medical research stuff when talking about the RX6700 series.

They can then price it at the same level as faster Nvidia GPUs,and then have the street price £200 on top of it.

The tech press needs to grow some balls and call them out on this nonsense more and more.

[Tea1023]

Well said Cat. Most of my friends are on console already and games are becoming ever more cross platform between them, and usually optimised for consoles anyway with a rubbish pc port released a year or so later. Maybe we are the dinosaurs. Think I'll just pick up a whole console for the price of a now low end GPU every few years instead. We've been sold down the river by Nvidia/AMD and everyone in between them and us. Beyond disappointed.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well said Cat. Most of my friends are on console already and games are becoming ever more cross platform between them, and usually optimised for consoles anyway with a rubbish pc port released a year or so later. Maybe we are the dinosaurs. Think I'll just pick up a whole console for the price of a now low end GPU every few years instead. We've been sold down the river by Nvidia and everyone in between them and us. Beyond disappointed.

Same here,I can see more and more of my friends moving to consoles. If more of these games can support keyboard and mouse,then definitely I can see it happening.

PCMR is now accountant code,for companies to make get rich quick schemes. It was already starting 5~10 years ago with cheap RGB bling used to push up pricing,making overclocking a sport instead of a value preposition,etc.

Consoles,game streaming,phones,tablets are now the mainstream platform in reality. You can see that in computing gaming revenues when 75% of its not from PC.

There are times when one has to step away from their hobbies,and usually its when the accountants now run the show. Now PC gaming is an accountants game and why many of the AAA games are design by commitee. Its why a game made by 5 people,ie, Valheim is utterly awesome. It seems Indie games are the last vestiges for keeping many of us on PC. The console makers if they show support for them(and keyboard and mouse support),will easily attract more PC gamers away.

[LSG501]

As AMD said they want to be a "premium" brand like Apple wants to,and Nvidia has shown admiration for(IIRC).

This is one of those times when you really wish that Intel had sorted out their gpu side of things.... if nothing else but to give us something we can buy.


I'd move to a console for gaming (I don't play enough games) but the problem is there are people like me that need 'high end' hardware for work. While I'm sure nvidia would love me to buy a quadro at 5-10x the price, I'm not that stupid because I know a geforce will perform equal or even better than most quadro's in the programs I use.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is one of those times when you really wish that Intel had sorted out their gpu side of things.... if nothing else but to give us something we can buy.


I'd move to a console for gaming (I don't play enough games) but the problem is there are people like me that need 'high end' hardware for work. While I'm sure nvidia would love me to buy a quadro at 5-10x the price, I'm not that stupid because I know a geforce will perform equal or even better than most quadro's in the programs I use.

The issue is as a gamer,you really need to try and exceed consoles specifications if you are spending decent money and people who want a new generation GPU,tend to want to play games at higher settings,or are having problems running a new and more demanding title.

The issue is I am not seeing how any of the current £400~£500 street price GPUs are sufficiently better,especially say in 12 months time,when the console devs have gotten better at coding for RDNA2. If we went by RRPs,it would be somewhat different,but ATM,the fact that most console games on the next generation consoles are just tarted up previous generation titles, is hiding the really poor price/performance improvements we have had since Pascal. Even as DF said the RT performance of a PS5 now,is similar to a much faster RX6800 which is concerning. I think its going to lead to a lot of dissapointed PC gamers in another 12~24 months who have paid well over the odds for some of these GPUs(especially the slower ones) and find their overpriced mainstream GPUs not cutting the mustard any more.

[LSG501]

The issue is as a gamer,you really need to try and exceed consoles specifications if you are spending decent money and people who want a new generation GPU,tend to want to play games at higher settings,or are having problems running a new and more demanding title.

The issue is I am not seeing how any of the current £400~£500 street price GPUs are sufficiently better,especially say in 12 months time,when the console devs have gotten better at coding for RDNA2. If we went by RRPs,it would be somewhat different,but ATM,the fact that most console games on the next generation consoles are just tarted up previous generation titles, is hiding the really poor price/performance improvements we have had since Pascal. Even as DF said the RT performance of a PS5 now,is similar to a much faster RX6800 which is concerning. I think its going to lead to a lot of dissapointed PC gamers in another 12~24 months who have paid well over the odds for some of these GPUs(especially the slower ones) and find their overpriced mainstream GPUs not cutting the mustard any more.

A 3060 would have been fine for my usage at the moment, 1080p seems to be the sweet spot for it and would be an upgrade from the 1060 6gb currently being used... the gpu rendering side seems pretty good in the software I use which is a bonus.

The annoying thing for me is my original plan was getting a 5950x and rtx3090 around new years, items you'd think would be one of the slower things to disappear due to cost etc, it's not like home office works need 16c/32t lol.... but because of all the scalpers/bots/cryptominers, and if I'm being honest completely useless supply, it's looking like at the very least I will now be holding off until next gen/refresh... a year with last (current) gen of a socket etc is fine but the longer the stock supplies carry on like this the closer I get to the next releases and if I'm going to overpay I want some upgrade path lol

I could afford to buy the stuff I want at the inflated prices but I just can't support scalpers and price gouging, it just encourages it even more if we keep giving them money... there's no point in an rrp if it's totally being ignored.

I wouldn't mind so much if money in the bank actually gained me interest but even that is non existent lol

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A 3060 would have been fine for my usage at the moment, 1080p seems to be the sweet spot for it and would be an upgrade from the 1060 6gb currently being used... the gpu rendering side seems pretty good in the software I use which is a bonus.

The annoying thing for me is my original plan was getting a 5950x and rtx3090 around new years, items you'd think would be one of the slower things to disappear due to cost etc, it's not like home office works need 16c/32t lol.... but because of all the scalpers/bots/cryptominers, and if I'm being honest completely useless supply, it's looking like at the very least I will now be holding off until next gen/refresh... a year with last (current) gen of a socket etc is fine but the longer the stock supplies carry on like this the closer I get to the next releases and if I'm going to overpay I want some upgrade path lol

I could afford to buy the stuff I want at the inflated prices but I just can't support scalpers and price gouging, it just encourages it even more if we keep giving them money... there's no point in an rrp if it's totally being ignored.

I wouldn't mind so much if money in the bank actually gained me interest but even that is non existent lol

The problem isn't just the scalpers and miners,its also certain aspects of our community and the techpress who also seem to be fine with how things are. How many are just fine excuse making for paying well beyond the odds,or are not criticising the Elephant in the room - Nvidia!

In the end they set the RRP,and yet we all know its kind of pointless. What they are trying to do is make stealth price increases,and hide it under marketing RRPs. This way they look good in reviews,but can say "it wasn't me" when prices are higher. Remember they played the same games during Fermi,and set RRPs which a lot of AIB partners had problems with it just because ATI had lower priced GPUs. Nvidia took the full cut and as you see in their financial reports today they have even more margins and revenue,which has more than accounted for any increased costs of business.

Nvidia knows very well how much the parts costs,so they know exactly what they are doing with these "low" RRPs.