It's no secret that the Nvidia RTX 30 GPU cards are in short supply at the moment, though there is hope on the horizon for PC users waiting to get hold of one. However, until stock becomes readily available again, scalpers are currently experiencing a boon in profit to the tune of millions.
A recent report indicates that even when Nvidia is able to meet the high demand of the new RTX cards, it needs to be cautious of scalper bots. These bots have been poised and ready to buy them out, having already made a profit of around $15.2 million US so far, with the 3080 alone bringing in around $6.3 million of that total. Purchasing a slew of hardware in quick succession means they can resell the cards on sites such as eBay for inflated prices in the hope that desperate people will pay the much higher prices once businesses run out. It isn't just the scalpers who are profiting either, as sites such as eBay, Paypal, and StockX have made a combined total of around $6.8 million US in seller fees.
The RTX 30 series cards are not the only ones being scalped, either. According to the report, previous generations of Nvidia cards - going as far back as the 900 series from 2014 - have been selling for at least 33% of the retail price, with some going for 100% of the original. This isn't the first time graphics card companies have been dealt a severe blow. Early last December, around $300,000 US worth of RTX 3090 cards were stolen from a factory in China. It seems PC gamers cannot catch a break at the moment.
The situation seems dire enough that stockists have even started to reintroduce older generation Nvidia cards, such as the RTX 260 and RTX 2060, back into the market while everyone waits for the 30 series to come back into stock. However, these aren't being introduced at lower prices, but they will hopefully fill a hole that RTX 30 cards are struggling to maintain at the moment.
Both Nvidia and AMD are having a tough time of it at the moment, as even AMD's latest RX 6000 series, which was launched in December 2020, is struggling to keep up with demand. Overall, it seems that gamers looking to upgrade their systems to GDDR6 GPU hardware in 2021 are left to twiddle their thumbs until supplies start pouring in again, and all while scalper bots rake in the profits. Hopefully, things will be back to normal soon.
Source: PC GamesN