Amazon Vendors Price Gouging On Scarce Supply Of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
It's fair to say that a lot gamers had May 27 circled on their calendars. That's the day NVIDIA said its beastly GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card would be available to purchase, and considering the price to performance ratio, high demand was inevitable. Unfortunately, limited inventories have led to price gouging, which is what third-party sellers are doing on Amazon.
The GeForce GTX 1080 is supposed to retail for $699 for Founders Edition SKUs, a fancy title for what are cards that follow NVIDIA's reference blueprint. Other versions are supposed to start at $599. However, if you head over to Amazon and browse the selection of GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards, both Founders Edition and ones with custom cooling solutions, you'll see they're selling for $900 and up, with most hovering closer to $1,000.
Resist the urge to pay that kind of premium. There's no doubt the GeForce GTX 1080 is a fantastic graphics card for high end gaming, including for VR titles and playing in 4K Ultra HD (see our review for an in-depth analysis with plenty of benchmarks). But at $900 and up, the bang for buck ratio goes right out the window.
Luckily for less savvy online shoppers, the Internet at large is on top of the situation with user reviews that warn buyers of the price discrepancy between MSRP and what third-party sellers are charging.
"This card is worth $699, not $1,700," one user stated succinctly on a listing for a Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphic card. Another user added, "For this price you can buy TWO 1080s and SLI them. Don't waste your money on this price gouging."
The asking price for Zotac's card has since fallen to $930, but is still $231 over what it should be. Be patient and wait for things to settle down. We can't say when exactly prices will normalize, but given the hype around these cards, we imagine NVIDIA and its partners are cranking them out as fast as they can.
You can bookmark this page to keep an eye on Amazon's inventory.
The GeForce GTX 1080 is supposed to retail for $699 for Founders Edition SKUs, a fancy title for what are cards that follow NVIDIA's reference blueprint. Other versions are supposed to start at $599. However, if you head over to Amazon and browse the selection of GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards, both Founders Edition and ones with custom cooling solutions, you'll see they're selling for $900 and up, with most hovering closer to $1,000.
Resist the urge to pay that kind of premium. There's no doubt the GeForce GTX 1080 is a fantastic graphics card for high end gaming, including for VR titles and playing in 4K Ultra HD (see our review for an in-depth analysis with plenty of benchmarks). But at $900 and up, the bang for buck ratio goes right out the window.
Luckily for less savvy online shoppers, the Internet at large is on top of the situation with user reviews that warn buyers of the price discrepancy between MSRP and what third-party sellers are charging.
"This card is worth $699, not $1,700," one user stated succinctly on a listing for a Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphic card. Another user added, "For this price you can buy TWO 1080s and SLI them. Don't waste your money on this price gouging."
The asking price for Zotac's card has since fallen to $930, but is still $231 over what it should be. Be patient and wait for things to settle down. We can't say when exactly prices will normalize, but given the hype around these cards, we imagine NVIDIA and its partners are cranking them out as fast as they can.
You can bookmark this page to keep an eye on Amazon's inventory.
