The nightmarish supply-and-demand issues experienced by PC gamers regarding GPUs on the current market appear to not be going anywhere soon. Nvidia has just launched its RTX 3060 after rumors, and it appears that the consistent scalping will continue unabetted.
The RTX 3060 released for $329, echoing the similarly low price that the rest of the Nvidia Ampere series has enjoyed. The gamers have absolutely not enjoyed it, however: an international semiconductor shortage emphasizes the difficulties multiple tech manufacturers are experiencing, further stymied by the trade war between America and China resulting in a 25% tax tacked onto tech arriving from China.
The day after the RTX 3060 was announced, the cards have already been grabbed from somewhere within the supply chain and are being resold on the Belarusian online market Onliner for $1,080 a piece: a 328% increase on the first day of the market. The 3060 has experienced a tremendous amount of attention already, namely for the included cryptocurrency limiters that Nvidia stated couldn't be hacked. There seems to be a highly probable chance that cryptocurrency miners will have interest in managing to defeat the technology, especially with Bitcoin once again on the seemingly inevitable climb.
The prevailing theory that this would result in a softer, if not nonexistent, second-hand market with a plethora of scalpers has apparently fallen short of its goal. This is further instigated by the rest of Nvidia's Ampere series simply not existing at MSRP since its launch on September 17, 2020. The scalping market for GPUs and consoles has reached its boiling rate to the point. Citizens are requesting governments get involved in the bot-fueled unscrupulous purchasing frenzy that ensures that the scalpers get all available goods before the public can even load the first link.
The UK Government taking action against scalpers currently seems plausible. In spite of all actions taken, it appears that the market is still ripe for using any means necessary to retrieve the cards, then selling to standard consumers at a monumental increase. The seller also included images of the GPUs' serial numbers, allowing Nvidia an opportunity to examine precisely where the supply-chain managed to fail. The seller on the website has a multitude of cards already available for sale: three were included in photos that showed the serial numbers.
The trade war will inevitably continue to damage the availability of high-tech goods, as China is inextricably interwoven into the supply and demand of consoles and GPUs alike. PC builders with budgets were originally looking forward to the announced 3060 series with the anti-mining measures seemingly offering promise of availability. Instead, it appears that gamers will continue to fight against bots and scripts during the modern, interconnected era.