A $ 329 Nvidia RTX 3060 was impossible to find, but you could try Newegg’s raffle

Nvidia supposedly today launched a $ 329 graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3060, but I haven’t seen much evidence yet.

Orders began today at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET for a card that listed prices from $ 329.99 to $ 629.99, averaging $ 471. These are not higher prices, mind you. These are the retail prices set by Nvidia’s partners.

As far as I know, the only places that claimed to store a card for $ 329.99 were Newegg and EVGA’s own website, and neither of them were simply putting the card up for sale: Newegg only sells chances to buy. cards, and EVGA has a queue where you press a “notify” button. Either way, you’re waiting for the company to hopefully get some good news back to you.

Screenshot of The Verge

The raffle and the queue are good things in my opinion! This means that you might just have a chance to get one. You have until 12:00 p.m. PT / 3:00 p.m. ET today to enter the Newegg Shuffle, which also includes a PS5 bundle, and you’ll know by 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET if you’re lucky. But that also means we’ll have little evidence that $ 329 is the real price for this GPU.

There is also a question of whether Nvidia initially managed to ship many 3060s. Queues and raffles aside, it now appears that GPU availability is among the rarest around. day, with some accusing Nvidia of a “paper launch” much like AMD’s RX 6800 series in November. PCGamer abandoned the live blog launch after an hour of failure. Best Buy barely had them. At some other retailers, they never showed up. I have seen lists of some versions straight from the web. Micro Center only had them in store.

One bright spot (for US gamers anyway): Best Buy ended up restocking a variety of other Today’s Nvidia GPUs, with the hard-to-find 3060 Ti, 3070, and even 3080 popping up every now and then.

In fact, it may have shown how difficult the RTX 3060 launch is: I was sitting on Falcodrin’s Twitch channel, a popular hangout where people try to find the cards and share their success, and Falcodrin launched a poll where only two people admitted to having caught a 3060 at all:

It’s also worth noting that at least two of the four supposedly $ 329.99 graphics cards look suspiciously like token offerings to hit that price point. EVGA has a nearly identical second version of the 3060 with a very slightly higher boost clock that sells for $ 390.

And while Newegg might list Zotac’s 3060 Twin Edge for $ 329.99, Zotac itself lists it and briefly sold the exact same card this morning for $ 479.99. (I saw the Add to Cart button on a refresh, but Zotac’s website cracked and it was out of stock when I returned.)

The RTX 3060 is a good card, but even at $ 330 I think you might want to wait and see the sequel because the 3060 Ti is so much better. At $ 400 and more, that doubles. But maybe you didn’t have a choice to start. We’re asking Nvidia if they have any more thoughts, and we’ll let you know what we hear. EVGA would only confirm that it is shipping a GPU for $ 329.99 and that “we have more supplies along the way.”