European retailers are charging 317% above list price for the RTX 3080

By Jacob Roach May 17, 2021

A report from 3D Center reveals the dire state of the graphics card market in Europe. The German outfit analyzed the prices of graphics cards from some of the top European retailers and found some are charging as much as three times the MSRP for RTX 30-series cards. AMD’s RX 6000 cards were found to be equally as expensive, with prices that range from two times to two-and-a-half times above MSRP.

The most egregious model is the RTX 3080, which launched with a list price of 719 Euros (around $880 U.S. at current rates). The “best price” for the card currently, according to 3D Center, is now 2,999 Euros, or around $3,650 — a 317% price increase.

The data gathered by 3D Center shows a steady growth in price throughout 2021, with prices hitting an all-time high on May 16, when the last data points were gathered. As executives from Nvidia warn of further shortages, we can only anticipate that the prices will continue to climb.

Nvidia cards show the clearest price gouging, but AMD cards are significantly marked up, too. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is, out of all AMD and Nvidia cards, selling closest to its list price. There’s still a 70% increase, however. The card launched for 999 Euros (around $1,200) and is now selling for as much as 1,799 Euros (around $2,200). The RTX 3070 shows a 189% increase, the RX 6800 shows a 159% increase, and even the budget-focused RTX 3060 is selling for 204% more than its list price.

It’s remarkably normal to see such insane prices for graphics cards as the GPU shortage and semiconductor shortage as a whole continues. Even our list of the best GPU deals is full of cards that are not only overpriced, but underpowered. The GTX 1050 Ti — which is a dinosaur by the GPU standards of today — is selling for close to $400, for example, which should be the price of an RTX 3060 Ti.

You can’t find a graphics card for list price anywhere. Thankfully, we have a few alternatives to buying a GPU that will save you money while allowing you to play the latest games.

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Senior Staff Writer, Computing

Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…

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Nvidia's recommended price holds up when it comes to some retailers and some models, but don't get too excited -- that's not true across the whole range of the RTX 4080 GPUs. In fact, in some cases, the prices vary so wildly that you might as well buy an RTX 4090 instead.

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At $900, the 12GB RTX 4080 looked like a slight price increase over the previous generation -- about $200. It's a price hike, but one that Nvidia could easily defend. Nvidia is on the record saying that the cost of manufacturing GPUs is going up, and the RTX 4090 (which has already proved very popular) saw a similar $100 price increase over the previous generation.

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A hand holding the RTX 4090 GPU.

First there was the Van Halen concert that sold out in 18 minutes in 2004. Then there was the PlayStation 5. Now the GeForce RTX 4090 is the latest hot thing to get snatched up by scalpers and resold at exorbitant prices, sometimes as high as double its retail price.
No joke. This massive GPU was already the most expensive card ever, with a retail price of $1,599. It sold out the day Nvidia released it, of course, and then quickly began appearing on eBay for prices ranging from $2,500 to $4,250. People are actually paying these prices, too.

The majority of the RTX 4090 listings on eBay are closed within moments of getting posted. This is similar to what happened when the PS5 first released in November 2020. Scalpers bought up the units faster than Sony could ship them and began reselling them at insane markups.
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Some of the lower-priced RTX 4090 cards on eBay were reasonably priced around $1,600. Be wary, however. It's possible that some are frauds or outright scams, which is something we saw often during the height of the GPU shortage. You don’t want to be the person who spent $1,600 on an RTX 3080 in a shiny plastic case.
All this was something we were hoping to avoid this time around, and we still have optimism that the market will settle back to normal quickly. Either way, it's best to wait it out until some of the hype around the launch dies down.