The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics card released today, June 10. The card was put on sale at a number of online retailers in the early morning. Unfortunately for those who hoped to snag one, Nvidia’s latest GPU sold out almost as soon as it was made available. It seems that history likes to repeat itself: Last week’s hot release, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, also sold out in minutes.
While many tried to get their hands on the new RTX 3070 Ti, there was only a short time frame before the card was sold out on most, if not all, websites. It was briefly available on Amazon, Newegg, BH Photo, Nvidia’s online store, and from several other retailers. Best Buy has delayed the release of the card by over seven hours, resulting in countless users refreshing the website for hours on end. Once the cards were put on sale, they were gone within seconds.
Newegg had some cards in stock readily available, but it seems that most of the sales went through a shuffle system. Customers were able to sign up for Newegg’s raffle, and if chosen, they were given two hours to buy the card. This system was likely a way to fight the fact that most cards are bought by bots. However, the cards that were out at release were sold almost immediately.
The graphics card might still be found in brick-and-mortar stores, although if last week taught us anything, it’s that it’s not easy to buy a graphics card in person either. During the release of this graphics card’s more powerful sibling, the RTX 3080 Ti, Best Buy opted not to offer the GPU online and only sold it in stores. This resulted in dozens of people waiting outside the store overnight, with the line growing to more than 200 people by the morning of the release date.
We suspect that there may have been people camping out to score the RTX 3070 Ti too — especially if you consider that it’s a much better deal than the RTX 3080 Ti. However, if the supplies were similar to those from last week, chances are that these cards sold out just as quickly as their online counterparts. In any case, this time around, Best Buy learned its lesson and only offered the card online, leaving the long lines to other retailers, such as Microcenter.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti was priced at $599 for the elegant, shrouded Founders Edition. Other models were also released today, some of them equipped with slightly different specs, better cooling, and a different design. Made by companies such as Asus, Gigabyte, Zotac, MSI, and other popular brands, these GPUs were commonly priced higher. Some of the cards were even in the ballpark of $1,000, approaching the recommended price of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which was initially priced at $1,200.
The RTX 3070 Ti delivers an upgrade in both specifications and performance when compared to its predecessor, Nvidia’s RTX 3070. In our internal testing, the card proved to be up to 8% more powerful than the base version, although it fell short when it came to 4K gaming. While this model is an upgrade over the RTX 3070, there’s still a wide gap between today’s new release and the next model, the RTX 3080.
As far as specs go, the same remains true — the RTX 3070 Ti is still closer to the 3070 than the 3080. It comes with 8GB of GDDR6X memory, a 1,575MHz base clock that can be boosted up to 1,770MHz, and 6080Gbps of bandwidth. It has more CUDA cores than the 3070 (6,144 total), 192 tensor cores, and 48 RT cores. The memory bus remains unchanged at 256 bits. Much like the RTX 3080 Ti, this GPU was meant to be less attractive for cryptocurrency miners due to the Lite Hash Rate limiter. This is a feature Nvidia implemented to combat the ongoing graphics card shortage. Unfortunately, the demand for the GPU is just too high even despite the implementation of LHR.
Those who weren’t lucky enough to snipe the RTX 3070 Ti before it sold out can still try their luck in physical stores. Buying one of the best graphics cards online right now is next to impossible due to a number of issues. As the GPU shortage might continue throughout 2021 and even well into 2022, all we can do is hope that this card, along with many others, will be restocked soon.