Scalpers were basically non existent in the 4xxx series. They're not some boogieman that always raises prices. They work under certain market conditions, conditions which don't currently exist in the GPU space, and there's no particular reason to think this generation will be much different than the last.

Maybe on the initial release, but not for long after.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Scalpers were basically non existent in the 4xxx series.

Bull fucking shit. I was trying to buy a 4090 for like a year. Couldn't find anything even approaching retail. Most were $2.3k+.

[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The 4090 basically never went for MSRP until Q4 2024.... and now it's OOS everywhere.

nobody scalped the 4080 because it was shit price/perf. 75% of the price of a 4090 too... so why not just pay the extra 25% and get the best?

the 4070ti (aka base 4080) was too pricey to scalp given that once you start cranking up the price then why not pay the scalper fee for a 4090.

Things below that are not scalp worthy.

[–] SaltySalamander@fedia.io 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The 4090 basically never went for MSRP until Q4 2024

This had nothing to do with scalpers though. Just pure corporate greed.

[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago

I'm not so sure. Companies were definitely buying many up, but they typically stick to business purchasing channels like CDW/Dell/HP etc.

Consumer boxed cards sold by retailers might have went to some small businesses/startups and independent developers but largely they were picked up by scalpers or gamers.

I work in IT and have never went to a store to buy a video card unless it was an emergency need to get a system functional again. It's vastly preferred to buy things through a VAR where warranties and support are much more robust than consumer channels.