Question Scalping is bad, mmmm'k Newegg?

[VirtualLarry]

For a 1660, I might understand, but a 1650? This same card was $255 a few months earlier, and I thought that price was harsh.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

For a 1660, I might understand, but a 1650? This same card was $255 a few months earlier, and I thought that price was harsh.

That isn't just happening in the US. Look at this:

https://www.computersalg.dk/i/64816...-4-gb-gddr6-pcie-3-0-x16-hdmi-2-x-displayport

2999DKK (~$460). Did I mention 6600XTs were ~3500DKK (~$538) at launch?

Everything is completely out of wack currently.

 

[Ajay]

Eh, when the tit's this big (crypto inflated prices), everyone wants to suck that sweet sweet milk.

 

[aigomorla]

dude not even microcenter is immune to it.

I paid for a RX6900XT i bought from the store direct back in 12/20/20 for 1149.00

That exact card is 1849.00 now at microcenter...

Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Nitro Plus Overclocked Triple-Fan 16GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card - Micro Center

Get it now! The NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT delivers powerhouse 4K gaming performance with vivid visuals for an elevated experience. The all-new innovative Wave Fin Design working in tandem with our V-Shape Fin Design for GPU Cooling reduces wind friction and centralizes airflow for optimal...

www.microcenter.com

700 dollar markup just because they can. And this is Microcenter... the place we all Toot that has great combo prices, and sorts on PC.

There is scalping on all levels.
Its not just newegg.

They need the money, to pay there employees more then what EDD gives out in unemployment.

 

[NickelPlate]

As much as the current situation sucks, I can't really blame anyone, it just is what it is because of a perfect storm.

1. Regardless of how you feel about Crypto, a lot of people are making huge sums of cash on it legally or at least trying, can't really say that I blame them but it's driving the mining industry to continue at a fevered pace and the miners are still profiting as well. Can't say that I blame them either.
2. Retailers are taking advantage of the huge deficit in the supply coupled with the huge demand and marking GPUs up into the stratosphere, and people/miners are buying them. Can't really blame them either, they're in business to make money, period. If you could buy a 3090 today and turn around and sell it to your neighbor for 3X would you decline? What if you could buy 100 of them and triple all that money? As much as I want a better gfx card, I'm not sure I could refuse as long as it's legal.
3. Massive semiconductor demand and suppliers are unable to keep up. This isn't just graphics cards it's everything with electronics, autos, phones you name it. Parts and material shortages are very real and unprecedented right now. I work for an electronics manufacturing company and our machines are turned off more often than not because we're waiting on parts. We even had to no bid certain jobs because we can't get the parts. On top of that we have a Pandemic further fueling the shortages. Companies simply can't make enough product keep up.

None of this stuff is illegal even though we might despise the practices people are using to buy and sell GPUs and what their motives are. The only thing I have a problem with is the use of bots to buy up entire supplies and then people posting pictures and being braggarts about it. But since there is no law against it, what can you do? And again can you blame the retailers for not cracking down on the bots? They're making $$$ hand over fist so they don't care who they sell to. The definition of "scalping" is kind of a gray area. Is it scalping or just business? Who's to blame the seller asking outrageous $$$ or the buyer willing to pay it?

What the future holds is anyone's guess. Will PC gaming eventually die out or become a hobby for the rich and wealthy? I hope not but I do wonder. Good thing I have other hobbies besides gaming that I can occupy my time with. I may just have to go back to reading more books or watching TV for awhile until things settle out.

 

[Mopetar]

What'd you expect? They know selling for less just means a bot swarm sucking everything up in a matter of seconds that are resold at a similarly marked-up price anyway. Maybe one lucky little boy or girl actually gets the good price, but most are getting flipped.

Even the brick and mortars realize that at the price difference between MSRP and market value that it's more than financially viable to pay a bunch of people just to stand in line. The people who can most afford to do that are the miners themselves since it's not like they have anywhere else they need to be.

I could get if it were some doe eyed gamer that stumbled in to all of this, but we know that you mine Larry. You know full well what this card is actually worth so why are you surprised that someone else has figured it out?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Heres the thing guys and it sucks. Market prices for cards in general is 2 to 3x what it should be or sticker price.
Someone is going to make that money wether it is newegg or microcenter or bestbuy or amazon or whomever the seller is the choice is sell at its sticker price and accept many will go to miners or ebay sellers whom will make a profit off the low cost or mark the cards up and keep the money.
Personally I do not think it is neweggs responsibility to ensure some random has a successful “ebay” reselling business. The ebay guy is a bottom feeder and adds no value to the process. I would rather newegg keep the margin and some opportunistic tick.

 

[UsandThem]

I could get if it were some doe eyed gamer that stumbled in to all of this, but we know that you mine Larry. You know full well what this card is actually worth so why are you surprised that someone else has figured it out?

Miners be like:

 

[Insert_Nickname]

None of this stuff is illegal even though we might despise the practices people are using to buy and sell GPUs and what their motives are. The only thing I have a problem with is the use of bots to buy up entire supplies and then people posting pictures and being braggarts about it. But since there is no law against it, what can you do? And again can you blame the retailers for not cracking down on the bots? They're making $$$ hand over fist so they don't care who they sell to. The definition of "scalping" is kind of a gray area. Is it scalping or just business? Who's to blame the seller asking outrageous $$$ or the buyer willing to pay it?

Yup. Just business.

Slightly OT, I've just seen an SD card with a 1000% markup. That's what I call professionals.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yup. Just business.

Slightly OT, I've just seen an SD card with a 1000% markup. That's what I call professionals.

Only professionals if it sells, otherwise they are a loser with a poor business plan.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I could get if it were some doe eyed gamer that stumbled in to all of this, but we know that you mine Larry. You know full well what this card is actually worth so why are you surprised that someone else has figured it out?

Well, the card in the OP only has 4GB, so it CAN'T MINE ETH, the currently most-profitable coin. So these are not really the object of the miner's eye, as far as card purchases go. (*)

It can mine RVN, so that's probably why, I didn't notice the "Super" originally, the card that I purchased for $255 a few months ago was the GTX 1650 Gaming X (non-Super) variant. Apparently, the "Super" can mine RVN a little bit better than the regular.

There was a YT video put out, about the best cards to buy and the best method to spec-mine RVN, in order to become a millionaire in two years, if the coin went from $0.10 to $10.00 (which it well may, I hope that it does). The procedure essentially involved buying like 6-8 GTX 1650 Super cards, and building a rig, and letting it sit on RVN for two years.

I have a server chassis with five GTX 1660 ti cards, which can also mine RVN fairly well, I've been temped to go that route with them (spec-mine RVN directly), rather than mine ETH with NH for BTC. It would reduce my short-term earnings by a bit, but it might be really profitable down the line.

(*) Edit: To add, getting a few RX 6600XT cards at release, for $400-500 would seem to be a nearly infinitely-better choice of cards to buy. Roughly the same price as these GTX 1650 Super cards,. mines better / more efficiently, and games better, for around the same price point.

Although, the GTX 1650 Super IS AVAILABLE, which is more than can be said for some cards.

 

[Anderegg]

B&H had a 3080 Ti in stock a few hours ago (at $300 less than the lowest eBay scalper listing)...I would have pulled the trigger on it if I had not just bought a 3080 Ti from an eBay scalper. The B&H price was $2000 no tax, the scalping price was $1900 after tax and shipping. I have an MSI GTX 1080 Ti Duke OC to be replaced, which is selling for $650 average curently on eScalp. After selling my 1080 Ti for a lot more than I paid for it 3+ years ago, and factoring in eBay 13% fee ($1900-$600=1300otd), I am in the end owning a 3080 Ti for MSRP+tax and losing an old GTX 1080 Ti that would have been worth exactly how much if there were no scalping issues and 3080's were in the wild for $500 used a year after release?

Sometimes you need to look at the big picture of how something economically effects you.

Pau

 

[Fanatical Meat]

B&H had a 3080 Ti in stock a few hours ago (at $300 less than the lowest eBay scalper listing)...I would have pulled the trigger on it if I had not just bought a 3080 Ti from an eBay scalper. The B&H price was $2000 no tax, the scalping price was $1900 after tax and shipping. I have an MSI GTX 1080 Ti Duke OC to be replaced, which is selling for $650 average curently on eScalp. After selling my 1080 Ti for a lot more than I paid for it 3+ years ago, and factoring in eBay 13% fee ($1900-$600=1300otd), I am in the end owning a 3080 Ti for MSRP+tax and losing an old GTX 1080 Ti that would have been worth exactly how much if there were no scalping issues and 3080's were in the wild for $500 used a year after release?

Sometimes you need to look at the big picture of how something economically effects you.

Pau

View attachment 49142

BTW, I have had two video cards fail on me and both were Asus cards.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Miners creating a rising tide that lifts all gpu prices up. Think I'm done with PC gaming once my Haswell 4C/8T Xeon and 1660 Super aren't enough to run new games well at 1080p (probably not too far off judging how crappy the cpu runs Cyberpunk).

 

[Mopetar]

Honestly were probably not too far off from APUs being able to do a decent job at 1080p so as long as you're not expecting 120 FPS or anything like that it's going to be easy to have a cheap rig for a more casual PC gaming experience.

Eventually there will be a downturn (or maybe even a bust) and it'll be possible to get a new gaming PC without spending a mint, but when exactly that happens is anyone's guess.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Miners creating a rising tide that lifts all gpu prices up. Think I'm done with PC gaming once my Haswell 4C/8T Xeon and 1660 Super aren't enough to run new games well at 1080p (probably not too far off judging how crappy the cpu runs Cyberpunk).

My 1660ti works awesome at 1050P. I have no interest in Cyberpunk but lets be real Cyberpunk is current day Crysis, does it run excellent on ANY machine?

 

[CP5670]

dude not even microcenter is immune to it.

I paid for a RX6900XT i bought from the store direct back in 12/20/20 for 1149.00

That exact card is 1849.00 now at microcenter...

Sapphire Technology AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Nitro Plus Overclocked Triple-Fan 16GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card - Micro Center

Get it now! The NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT delivers powerhouse 4K gaming performance with vivid visuals for an elevated experience. The all-new innovative Wave Fin Design working in tandem with our V-Shape Fin Design for GPU Cooling reduces wind friction and centralizes airflow for optimal...

www.microcenter.com

700 dollar markup just because they can. And this is Microcenter... the place we all Toot that has great combo prices, and sorts on PC.

Last time I was there, they were charging $2600 for these. They weren't even selling, the shelves were full of them.

 

[Jaskalas]

I ended up paying $1400 for a 3060Ti this past spring. (It came with an entire PC at an overall fair price tho)

Go prebuilt during a "sale"... or dig deep.

 

[aigomorla]

Last time I was there, they were charging $2600 for these. They weren't even selling, the shelves were full of them.

ugh that's completely insane....
Its so easy to kill scaplers on the vendor side.

Just don't honor Warrenty or RMA, unless you have the real recipt, and you can provide a copy of the card used with all but the last 4 digits covered up.
This way if the name doesn't match the RMA, the vendor WONT honor it.

Id like to see how many cards sell then from scalpers knowing full well, you won't have any warranty on the card.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

ugh that's completely insane....
Its so easy to kill scaplers on the vendor side.

Just don't honor Warrenty or RMA, unless you have the real recipt, and you can provide a copy of the card used with all but the last 4 digits covered up.
This way if the name doesn't match the RMA, the vendor WONT honor it.

Id like to see how many cards sell then from scalpers knowing full well, you won't have any warranty on the card.

From my att iphone days. That won’t work.
When there is a huge demand and in this case a huge demand that can make you a profit mining nobody cares about warranties. They would still sell at inflated prices.
We simply need more inventory. Be awesome if intels card is good or better and them being able to make the chips themselves instead or relying on TMSC. That would likely be huge because it would be a new player and new production.

 

[NTMBK]

Miners creating a rising tide that lifts all gpu prices up. Think I'm done with PC gaming once my Haswell 4C/8T Xeon and 1660 Super aren't enough to run new games well at 1080p (probably not too far off judging how crappy the cpu runs Cyberpunk).

I'm in the same boat. The PC under my TV has a Haswell i5, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to justify replacing it if these prices continue.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

My 1660ti works awesome at 1050P. I have no interest in Cyberpunk but lets be real Cyberpunk is current day Crysis, does it run excellent on ANY machine?

I was referring more to it being the canary in the coal mine about this current gen of games finally killing off 4C/8T cpus. I'm not expecting them to be relevant much longer. Not that I'm expecting huge life out of the 1660 Super either given it's more like a 50-series equivalent for Turing and games always get harder to run over time. 1660S was just barely enough to get a mostly 60 fps in RDR2 also with very careful settings tweaks.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I was referring more to it being the canary in the coal mine about this current gen of games finally killing off 4C/8T cpus. I'm not expecting them to be relevant much longer. Not that I'm expecting huge life out of the 1660 Super either given it's more like a 50-series equivalent for Turing and games always get harder to run over time. 1660S was just barely enough to get a mostly 60 fps in RDR2 also with very careful settings tweaks.

Yeah I get that.
I have a similar concern

 

[MrTeal]

Well, the card in the OP only has 4GB, so it CAN'T MINE ETH, the currently most-profitable coin. So these are not really the object of the miner's eye, as far as card purchases go. (*)

It can mine RVN, so that's probably why, I didn't notice the "Super" originally, the card that I purchased for $255 a few months ago was the GTX 1650 Gaming X (non-Super) variant. Apparently, the "Super" can mine RVN a little bit better than the regular.

There was a YT video put out, about the best cards to buy and the best method to spec-mine RVN, in order to become a millionaire in two years, if the coin went from $0.10 to $10.00 (which it well may, I hope that it does). The procedure essentially involved buying like 6-8 GTX 1650 Super cards, and building a rig, and letting it sit on RVN for two years.

Although, the GTX 1650 Super IS AVAILABLE, which is more than can be said for some cards.

That video sounds bad, TBH. A 1650 can mine what, ~10 RVN a day right now? Even if you had 8, that would be 80/day, or ~29k RVN a year at current difficulty or 60k after two years. The massive assumption there is that network hashrate doesn't go up, which is terrible for so many reasons though. If you're spending $3500 on 8 overpriced 1650s today to mine Raven and betting on it going from 0.1 to 10, you're probably better off just buying 35,000 RVN.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'm in the same boat. The PC under my TV has a Haswell i5, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to justify replacing it if these prices continue.

Won't be much longer til a tinker board system would be a step up.