There’s no doubt that since the launch of the latest NVIDIA and AMD cards dating back to October, obtaining these cards felt much like Indiana Jones obtaining some relic. In a lesser analogy, it had become winning the lottery. Even with as difficult as grabbing a new console was, obtaining a RTX 3000 series card or AMD 6000 series card was much more difficult. Alas, upon finding a pattern and a lot of trial and error, I was able to get the card I was looking for in my build. TheGIGABYTE RTX 3080 VISION OCis one of the best-looking cards to launch this Fall and doesn’t rely on RGB elements to achieve its profound look.
I’m not going to lie that I was actually under the impression the entire card was white. If you choose to vertical mount the card, the fans are white, but the backplate and front cover are silver. Mounting traditionally shows off the GIGABYTE logo and a purple stripe down the side. The logo is RGB customizable through GIGABYTE’S RGB Fusion 2.0 software. The the lighting is not even across the logo and wish the purple stripe had been omitted due to the customization options. The card does have the strange indentation much like GIGABYTE’s non-premium3080 EAGLE. What ended up surprising me was this silver metal backplate. It blends in with your case lighting as it almost reflects the coloring. Coming from an EVGA GTX 1080ti that was black, that card didn’t offer those types of aesthetics.
This card is amazingly silent and efficient. Temperatures playingCyberpunk 2077on 4K DLSS Ultra with Psycho Raytracing netted around 40-50 FPS on average while temperatures only ranged from 60-65 degrees. This was impressive as the previous EVGA GTX 1080ti had a radiator and it averaged 70-75. With HDMI 2.1, I was able to unlock the potential of 4K 120hz with NVIDIA G-SYNC across the HDMI cable and I went back and cranked upProject Carsand was able to reach its full potential. Check out the unboxing below and continue down for the process at your best chance to grab this or any of the newer cards released including NVIDIA Founders Edition cards.
Now, are you looking to pick up one of these cards without having to pay over $1,000 for them? you may follow a Discord server or a live YouTube channel for drops, but that amounts to allowing yourself to step away whenever the drop happens. On top of that, the likes of Newegg, Zotac, Amazon and EVGA are most likely to go down or slow down to a crawl while bots swipe up the stock. It’s ultimately a giant waste of time and you may grab a lottery win, but it’s just that. Now, if you’re looking for new AMD processors, I do recommend getting on one of these servers or videos to see the drop.
The one savior when it comes to obtaining a new AMD or NVIDIA card is Best Buy. If you happen to have a Microcenter near you and want to camp out every night, you are more than welcome to do that. Best Buy drops cards every other Tuesday morning, so it will happen next on January 19. The cards drop between 11:20 AM and 11:30 AM and due to how Best Buy handles these drops, it is possible to grab one. It seems that Best Buy allocates card inventory to stores, but I have had the option in the past for delivery to my residence. People, including myself, have stated that the card will show available and it isn’t within 250 miles for delivery. At this point, you’re too late. Their overall stock isn’t out, but that allocation for your proximity might not be there. I’m not 100% on the reasoning for this, but you can eliminate this altogether by being ready.
Here’s what you need to do give yourself the best shot to obtain a card:
It took only a few days for the card to ship to the store and it actually arrived a day early. There are varying aspects to that. Had I have waited, I could have probably saved some money with going with the Founders Edition. Also, due to tariffs, the price of the cards have increased across the board. I would recommend having 2-3 choices and which ever comes available to move to your cart first, jump on it. Best Buy at least offers a good chance to land your card. They also have AMD in stock on these days, but a lot less. The higher level cards, such as the 6900XT and the RTX 3090 tend to stick around a bit longer because the demand isn’t there. Doing this through the Best Buy app was fairly straightforward.
