Nvidia RTX 3070 delayed to meet massive demand

Nvidia is delaying the release of its highly anticipated RTX 3070 video card in order to better prepare for shortages.

Originally, the hardware manufacturer planned to release the RTX 3070 on Oct. 15. That date has now been pushed back to Oct. 29, according to a recent blog post made on the company’s official website.

“Production of the GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards are ramping quickly,” An Nvidia spokesperson wrote in the blog. “We’ve heard from many of you that there should be more cards available on launch day. To help make that happen, we are updating the availability date to Thursday, October 29th.”

The move was undoubtedly in response to the RTX 3080 debacle, in which the company’s entire stockpile of 3080s vanished hours after launch day. Nvidia issued a public apology for the shortage and assured customers that the 3080 is still in full production mode, vowing to replenish vendors on a weekly basis.

Among PC gamers, Nvidia is one of the big two manufacturers of graphics cards (the other being AMD). When the company announced its latest line, the RTX 30 series, the industry was shocked.

Not only is the RTX 30 series far more powerful than the RTX 20 series that preceded it, it’s also significantly cheaper. The RTX 2080 was priced at $1300 upon release whereas the RTX 3080 launched at $700. Demand for the 3080 is so high that it continues to remain sold out even weeks after release.

To be fair to Nvidia, no one could have predicted that the demand for RTX 30s would be so high, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. Only now is it clear that there are a lot of gamers out there willing to invest in cutting edge hardware despite COVID-19.

Nvidia has also upgraded its security procedures to prevent malicious buyers attempting to horde purchases with bots and scripts.

So step off, scalpers. I need to pick one up of these bad boys for my own rig before Cyberpunk 2077 launches.

If you enjoyed this story, check out on Dreamhaven, the new video game company started by former Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime.

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