RTX 3050 price hikes have seemingly popped up everywhere in the world, even if NVIDIA's latest entry-level Ampere GPU hasn't even hit the market yet.
VideoCardz reports that a triple-fan, Gigabyte Gaming variant of the 3050 just got listed on a Lithuanian retailer's site, and it costs an insane €492 EUR (roughly $550 US) at the time of this writing. This is around double the MSRP set by Team Green, which is $249.
Considering the expected performance of the desktop 3050, this is really bad pricing. It seems like you'll be paying a premium only for DLSS and ray tracing support with the 3050, since the similarly-performing GTX 1660 Ti (which doesn't have DLSS and RT) can be had for a relatively cheaper €459 EUR ($519 US).
This news comes after it was determined that supplies of the RTX 3050 appear to be "very good," specifically in relation to how bad NVIDIA's previous launches were. Normally, low supplies drive the price of graphics cards up, as dictated by basic economics.
But that's not even the only place where RTX 3050 price hikes have been spotted.
According to Tom's Hardware, a retailer in Peru just listed a Palit RTX 3050 Dual OC for a crazy $453. This is basically reaching scalped price territory, and already putting the 3050's current street pricing on-par with scalped RX 6500 XTs from AMD.
The 6500 XT (which has been lambasted by tech reviewers for its incredibly weak performance) costs between $400 to as much as $600 on eBay as of this moment. With this pricing, there are far more powerful cards on offer (granted, they're still overpriced).
NVIDIA is scheduled to release the RTX 3050 on January 27th, but it seems like this launch will be just like any other-sky-high prices, scalpers, and little to no availability.
Why The Early RTX 3050 Price Hikes?
There are numerous reports saying that supplies of the RTX 3050 are quite good. NVIDIA even stressed that gamers will get GPUs this year, saying last year that inventories are "very lean."
But with the street prices of the 3050 already spiking, it looks like Team Green's claims are a bunch of hot air. The same old supply chain issues could still be plaguing their inventory, given that the global chip shortage has technically slowed down.
When they announced the desktop 3050 at CES 2022, they specifically touted it as a "budget-friendly" card. Well, there's nothing really budget-friendly about entry-level hardware priced the same as a mid-range or even high-end model, which will likely leave a bad taste in PC gamers' mouths.
If you want a timeline, NVIDIA actually gave one: the shortage is not expected to fully end until next year, as per a report by TechRadar.
Until then, you'll just have to rely on the 3050's apparently weak crypto mining performance to ensure that future RTX 3050 price hikes will no longer happen. Because things will only get worse for PC gamers if crypto miners basically "join forces" with scalpers to further drive prices up.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
