I camped at Best Buy to get an RTX 3000 graphics card: Feel My Pain

(Image: Michael Kan / PCMag)

It’s 1 a.m. and I’ve been waiting outside a Best Buy in San Francisco for over 3 p.m.

It’s a cold 56 degree night, I’m exhausted and need to pee. But I wait anyway, in my folding chair right next to the store entrance. It’s because it’s 2021, and that’s what I have to do to buy a PC graphics card during the great chip shortage.

In about six hours, Best Buy in San Francisco will begin selling Nvidia’s RTX 3000 GPUs, but only while supplies last. So here I am, alongside over 80 other people, all of whom have decided to camp. The line of customers winds around two corners of the building, and potential buyers shelter with blankets, sleeping bags and even a tent.

“Brother, we look crazy here,” says a student named Christian Singh.

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“A night of suffering to end it all”

Front of the line at Best Buy in San Francisco on Monday night. (Photo: Michael Kan)

Indeed, it is a bit crazy. But that’s what the GPU shortage can do to a consumer.

The day before, Best Buy made the rare decision to sell Nvidia’s RTX 3000 graphics cards on Tuesday in select stores across the country. No robots. No online scalpers. All you had to do was stand in line and hope there was enough stock for you.

Suspecting demand could be huge, I arrived at Best Buy in San Francisco almost 24 hours before the 9.45am sales event started. It was then that I met James Hurst, a research scientist, who was the first in line. He came early hoping to get an Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics card (which starts at $ 700) for a friend in desperate need of the GPU.

The queue starts at 10 a.m. at Best Buy in San Francisco on Monday. (Photo: Michael Kan)

“It causes him a lot of heartache and stress because he doesn’t want to pay the prices of scalpers,” Hurst said of his friend, who is trying to build the PC of his dreams. “I think it’s snowballed to the point where we’re so desperate we’re ready to go camping.”

Hurst’s friend Alec Taggart would eventually wait by his side outside the store. “I’ve been collecting PC parts in my closet for almost a year,” Taggart said. “I just want to stop wasting my time looking.”

The two came prepared with a folding chair, an inflatable couch, an Oculus Quest VR headset, and plenty of blankets and snacks. “A night of suffering to end it all,” Taggart joked.

The second person in line was a student, Christian Singh, who loves to play. He too came to the store to buy a Founders Edition RTX 3080 card for a friend who lives in the “middle of nowhere” in Oklahoma and is stuck with an old graphics card. Singh plans to send the card to his friend so they can play PC games together.

Local news interviewing Christian Singh outside the store. (Photo: Michael Kan)

“It’s frustrating for consumers,” he said. “We fight with robots and scalpers for these cards, and they sell them at inflated prices when there’s no reason for a middleman … It’s one of the only chances people have. get a card in person. “

At 2:15 p.m. on Monday, 15 people had gathered at the store. Some were high school and summer vacation students. Others took a day off or worked remotely, giving them the opportunity to take extreme measures and camp early.

“Honestly, it sucks. It shouldn’t be like that, ”said a student named Tom Hsieh, who was waiting at the store with his girlfriend and their dog. Their attempts to buy graphics cards had so far been hampered by chip shortages and scalpers. “We have no choice but to wait like this. This is the only option, ”he added.

At 3 p.m. on Monday afternoon, the line begins to wrap around the building.

Tom Hsieh and Kianna Quach are waiting with their dog. (Photo / s: Michael Kan)

But not everyone understood the urgency of Tuesday’s next sale. The growing line has naturally caused the bewilderment of repeat Best Buy customers.

“Hey, what are you guys waiting for? asked a client that day.

“Graphics cards,” we answer.

“You mean like baseball?” The customer replied.

“No, for your computer.”

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Wait, am I going to die here tonight?

The store at 9:15 p.m. on Monday evening.

Obviously, waiting all night to buy a PC graphics card is both ridiculous and taxing. For example, sitting outside for so long caused me to get sunburned.

But do you know what’s craziest? Freeze to death to buy a GPU.

At the beginning, the day passed pleasantly. People chatted, made jokes and played on their smartphones and Nintendo Switches. But when night came, I endured the most physical pain I have felt in years. It was cold outside that Best Buy store which was almost unbearable. My smartphone recorded the temperatures at 55 degrees, but the wind from the San Francisco Bay Area made me feel closer to 40, even though summer is in full swing.

Unfortunately, neither of us could leave the line for too long. Earlier today, a Best Buy employee told us that this would prevent us from purchasing a graphics card. “Tomorrow, when I come to the store, I will go over (the security tape),” she said.

San Francisco can get surprisingly cold overnight. (Photo: Michael Kan)

As night came, I realized that I had come to this event ill-prepared. Although I brought a foldable chair, I arrived without blankets. It briefly made me wonder if I was going to die trying to get a graphics card that night.

Fortunately, James Hurst gave me several spare blankets. But even so, from midnight to 6 a.m., I shivered beneath them, especially awake. The cold wind and the noise of cars and street cleaners made it almost impossible to sleep. Instead, I watched Best Buy’s parking lot in total misery.

“Oh my God. I just want my card,” Singh said after just two hours of sleep on the sidewalk.

Others, like Long Ngyuen, a high school graduate who was trying to buy a GPU for his desktop computer, couldn’t sleep at all. “My eyes are so tired,” he said. “I can’t wait for this day to be over. “

During this time, the line continued to grow throughout the night. At 4:40 a.m., about 140 people were waiting outside the store. By 6 a.m., the crowd had grown to 185 people. The queue got so long that it finally circled the store, attracting well over 200 people.

The line at 4:48 am Tuesday morning. People are starting to stretch more around the building. (Photo: Michael Kan)

To help keep things civil, Matt DeCambra, a Best Buy customer in line, did the thankless job of maintaining a list of every consumer online and in what order. He did this by staying awake all night by adding the newcomers to a Google Docs on his phone. Aside from an argument with a few consumers who had been off the line for several hours, “everyone was cool,” he said.

“I kind of enjoyed it,” DeCambra said, though the bags under his eyes told a different story. “Everyone here had the same interest in the games or were passionate about it. It was really cool taking care of people, making sure they had a blanket, water and food.

The only problem that remained was that everyone online would get a graphics card?

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No pain, no gain (unless you’re lucky)

The moment of truth: Best Buy is gearing up to hand out tickets to customers who will be guaranteed a graphics card on Tuesday morning. (Photo: Michael Kan)

Best Buy declined to say how much inventory it has in the San Francisco store. But on Tuesday morning, it emerged that the retailer has enough GPUs to serve around 200 customers. That’s way more than the 64 cards Best Buy had available in select stores for the RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition launch last month.

Despite the large inventory, not everyone left with a graphics card on Tuesday morning. A customer who narrowly missed the deadline said he arrived at 6:45 am, only to be told there would be no more stock.

I, on the other hand, had dibs early on. On Tuesday, the Best Buy store had 29 units of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Founders Edition card – and I was able to snatch one.

But was it all worth it?

My “golden ticket” for the RTX 3080 Founders Edition card. (Photo: Michael Kan)

“It was worth it. But it should never have come to this,” said Singh, who has vowed never to camp for a graphics card again.

“I just feel like I’m on an international flight to London,” said Hurst, who was draped in a large blanket. “Nevertheless, I am delighted to have his card. Everything will pay off shortly.

Indeed, today we have beaten the bots and now we have perhaps the most coveted graphics card on the market. Still, I can’t help but feel stupid (or maybe jealous) after meeting a high school student named Amead Eshpari, who got one of the last guaranteed spots online to buy an RTX 3000 graphics card.

Unlike me, he didn’t really wait at the store. Instead, he arrived at Best Buy on Tuesday morning at 8:15 am He arrived at the perfect time. By that time, the back of the line had dispersed and more customers left the ship after learning that the remaining GPU stock consisted of RTX 3090 cards only – coincidentally the same card. chart he was hoping to buy.

“I was very lucky,” said Eshpari, who rode his bike to the store. “It’s crazy luck that I made it here.”