ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3090

shal

Just checking...

NVIDIA decreases production to increase price. NVIDIA distributors and thugs deploy bots to buy up stock. Those people start scalping on eBay for 2x, 3x, 4x, and morex, $$$. And the only people getting screwed are the common man just trying to game?

Meanwhile, Microcenter erases their phone numbers from everywhere, and won't answer the old numbers anyway. Funnels people in to a link for chat that does not work. Requires DNA to send an email. And requests customers drive, potentially dozens of miles, to get in line, give up privacy (name and number) to receive a text to get in the store. And are promptly told, Sorry... you lose. Try again tomorrow. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Feel free to correct anything above that is inaccurate.

PowerSpec_MichaelB

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/8393/asus-rog-strix-rtx-3090

My take on the flow of this situation would be as follows:

1. Silica shortage (not your average backyard sand, but pure silica) leading to manufacturing shortages across the entire industry worldwide: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand (November of 2019), https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/sand-shortage-the-world-is-running-out-of-a-crucial-commodity.html (March of 2021)
2. Market Prioritization. Products used in consumer application is often cutdown and derived from higher-tier markets. For the context of computers, our gaming-grade graphics cards and processors are cutdown from their HPC counterparts. The RTX 3090 and 3080 for example are cutdown from the RTX A6000 and A40 class of cards, sharing the same GA102 GPU core. Silicon is often offered to the HPC industry first before it trickles down to our general consumer industry, so we have to wait for the components that weren't quite strong enough to become A6000/A40's to be "cutdown" into A6000's and A40's. Since the industry is facing a shortage, that process is impacted as a result.
3. Distribution & Logistics Issues. Assembling components in the middle of a worldwide material shortage compounded by a pandemic is difficult enough, even more so when the same pandemic impacts international shipping. Flights were grounded in many countries, additional screening measures added on shipments into and out of countries, coupled with shipping companies being unable to meet with the surge in shipping demand from those now working at home and not wanting to risk doing their shopping in-store. All of this, while trying to maintain social distancing practices themselves and staffing to meet the demand, it's quite the nightmare scenario.
4. Pandemic Induced Demand. This one couldn't have come at a worse possible time. We saw the silica shortage coming back in 2019, but to have everyone working at home and in direct access to their PC's and gaming devices, being barred from their usual outdoor activities looking for new outlets for entertainment? No doubt this lead to a significant increase in demand for GPU's and new technology in general. Remember, there isn't just a GPU shortage going on, car manufacturers are competing for the same silica: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56841946
5. Scalpers & Bots. As we've seen throughout history, not everyone acts altruistically in times of need and instead look for opportunities to profit. They've existed far longer than hardware shortages and will likely exist beyond this shortage as well.
6. Tariffs. I won't get into political discussion, but tariffs do play a role in product pricing and it couldn't have hit at a worse time. It took a while for the impact to trickle down to hit consumers, but when it did, it was significant: https://www.pcmag.com/news/with-tariffs-back-in-place-gpu-vendors-evga-zotac-raise-prices-on-graphics, https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gpu-tariff-asus-priceincrease

With all of that said, I don't believe that manufacturers are willingly decreasing production to inflate their own pricing. Doing so would risk their market share which is far more valuable to them than making a few extra hundred dollars on what limited number of cards they are selling. Remember, Microsoft sold the Xbox consoles at a loss just to gain the valuable market share. Companies want to be able to say "Our product is in the hands of X% of customers around the world", and they can't do that if they are shooting themselves in the foot by restricting the very product consumers want. I just think it's a combination of some very unfortunate events that brought about a terrible situation all around.

As for the phone number issue, I can say that our tech support team can still be reached at 614-850-3670. In fact, I'd recommend texting that number as you'll likely get a quicker response due to the increased phone queue volume. As for chat not working, this would be the first that I've heard of that, though I can pass that along to the supervisors of our tech support team.

Part of the reason why we have this community forum is that we have actual customers sharing information and helping each other out. I, for example, am operating out of our corporate office and can't really provide any information from an in-store level, but customers that are at the stores would be able to help update each other on their experience with the lines, what they see as far as product availability is concerned, and provide crucial feedback to one another.

I get that everyone is frustrated over this GPU shortage situation, throw my name in the hat among that very same group of people, but there won't be much that can be done about it until the world gets back into a normal rhythm. Until then, we'll work to improve our processes and we are still open to suggestions to improve. Discussions are going on every single day to improve our processes and to get everyone the product they are looking for, it's just a matter of time before things eventually work out.

Ian

Greetings, to add on to the above, our chat service is available during store hours at the bottom right corner on any page on the www.microcenter.com website (including the home page), however not the Community.microcenter.com (this forum) website

We are not aware of any issues. I tested the service and it is working as intended. Simply click the chat bubble on the page and fill out the basic information and click Start Chat to be placed into our queue or connected to a representative.

shal

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/31572#Comment_31572

The last 6 hours. Now, it may be that Microcenter is using tracking technology that is blocked, and rightly so, by certain browsers and responsible companies (Apple for one).

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 3.12.25 PM.png

Ian

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/31580#Comment_31580

Which browser are you using? I tested Chrome and Safari on a Mac, see a quick loading circle like your screenshot and then am presented with the options.

shal

nvidia-earnings-q4-2021-quarterly-gpu-shortage-revenue

Note that Nvidia's lip service about making GPUs unusable for crypto mining failed, as everyone knew it would. It was lip service. And Nvidia doesn't need to "beat" the competition. It has one competitor: AMD, and NV is winning. Nvidia is not focused on execution of production of GPUs. It's on a shopping spree to buy up competition, and perceived future competition. It doesn't give a RA about consumer customers.

Enforcement. Companies such as eBay have always been evil, dating back to the days of Meg Whitless. They take their usual 10% or so of every sale, so they have no problem with scalpers on their platform selling 3090 after 3090 at $4K+. Until the states AGs band together and start investigating scalpers and the platforms they use, it won't change. The AGs did it with concert ticket scalpers. Time to step up and do their jobs again.

Anyone can see the scalpers flaunting their bot booty - guy on comments on PCmag shows off a wall of bot-bought Nvidia GPUs, lhao, selling them one by one at $3K, $4K, and beyond.

Yes shipping and logistics are a worldwide problem. You just have to pay more to get your product to market. Would I pay $100 extra on an MSRP priced 3090 because there are 4,000 empty containers waiting to return to Taiwan and 60 ships waiting at Long Beach and Port LA? Of course. But I can't, because the product isn't there. Nor do I care about tariffs. Tack another $100 onto MSRP.

WRT Microcenter, Tech support is not sales support. Tech support always requires proof of purchase. Why not offer sales support.

Bots: read all about it

https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-do-bots-buy-up-graphics-cards-we-rented-one-to-find-out

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/m3ma46/i_built_a_bot_to_get_myself_a_gpu_and_it_worked/

shal

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/31582#Comment_31582

Safari on Mac. I would never, ever use FLoCcing RAM-slurping Spyware Chrome from Pichai. I do have anti-tracking anti-ad add-ons.

After some testing it's Ghostery that kills chat. Seven billion people in the world and I'm the only person using Ghostery on your site because you guys say you've heard of no chat issues?

Ian

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/31587#Comment_31587

After checking into this further, our chat software is working properly with each browser we test without third party add-ons. It appears Ghostery may block chat windows by default, as users report on their github page https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/issues/550 and I see this same question coming up on other websites.

If you do not wish to disable that, you are more than welcome to send an email through our contact forms regarding online sales at https://www.microcenter.com/site/customer-support/customer_support_contact_form.aspx or email tech support questions about a Micro Center purchase at https://www.mctsol.com/newtechsupport_form.php