Scalpers Left Holding The Bag As They Struggle To Return NVIDIA RTX 4080s En Masse.

You know what they say, a scalper’s pain is a gamer’s gain (actually, I just made that up), because scalpers who jumped the gun on NVIDIA’s RTX 4080 have been left holding the bag and are struggling to return their purchases or sell them on the open market under their cost basis. Gamers, on the other hand, are benefiting from this situation because they can purchase graphics cards at a lower price. Reddit is the news source (via Videocardz, via Mooreslawisdead).

When online retailers like Newegg eliminate the possibility for customers to return NVIDIA’s RTX 4080 graphics cards, it sends scalpers scrambling in the direction of third-party markets.
According to posts made on r/PCMR, scalpers are already attempting to unload their stock of previously scalped NVIDIA RTX 4080s by swarming to different online markets such as Facebook.

Even with a “generous” price that was near the suggested retail price of $1200, it appears that they are having problems moving the inventory. The delight with which gamers who missed out on the bitcoin mining boom may be understood comes from their position of having been abandoned during that time.

Scalpers have been able to make a quick profit off of virtually every NVIDIA GPU released in recent years, but it appears that they may have to face the music when it comes to the RTX 4080. People who picked up the SKUs in bulk with the hopes of reselling them for a profit will be in for a nasty awakening because it is already difficult to move this card at the MSRP price.

It is interesting to note that MLiD provides another reason scalpers flock to third-party marketplaces. They discovered that retailers like Newegg had removed their refund policy for the NVIDIA RTX 4080. This means that scalpers cannot take the easy route of simply returning the product to the retailer from which they scalped it.

This would imply that a price war is about to break out, which would put selling pressure on the RTX 4080 pricing, which will result in the price falling below the MSRP as a natural consequence of market forces.

The NVIDIA RTX 4080 is getting off to a rocky start in terms of its history of customer complaints. First, the 12GB model, which wasn’t technically an RTX 4080 (it had fewer CUDA cores and was actually in the class of RTX 4070 Ti), was dropped following a not-insignificant outcry from consumers and the media.

It would appear that the general populace is not particularly receptive to the RTX 4080 16GB either at this point. The RTX 4090, on the other hand, is selling like crazy and disappearing off store shelves even though it has a substantially higher price tag.

The value that the cards provide may be a contributing factor to this phenomenon. While the RTX 4090 may be purchased for USD 19.5 per TFLOP, the RTX 4080 can only be purchased for USD 24.6 for a TFOP. This indicates that the RTX 4080, with its price point of $1200, gives a value that is 21% lower per dollar compared to the RTX 4090.

Scalpers returning their #Nvidia RTX 4080s they couldn't sell on eBay is a big issue for retailers…

It's so big that @Newegg just removed the refund option for many 4080s!!!

Sorry scalpers, you need to keep that stupid 4080!🤣https://t.co/aCyYIZ7nnBhttps://t.co/sjKjJGwMvz pic.twitter.com/E337vziBJU

— Moore's Law Is Dead (@mooreslawisdead) December 1, 2022

There is also the consideration that individuals who want the best GPU that money can buy will go for the RTX 4090, and the fact that the RTX 4080 is priced at $1200 means that it is not something that the average gamer can afford to purchase. It would appear that NVIDIA has made an error in estimating the breadth of the market at the $1200 price range.

If you take the same number of TFLOPS as the RTX 4090, then the RTX 4080 should have been USD 949. This is the highest price point that we believe the card should have launched with, and it is also the minimum price point that we believe it should have launched with.