On January 4, I ordered and prepaid an RTX 3080 around MSRP from Saturn (which we have in Germany and is comparable to Microcenter in the USA) but had no luck. A week later, I called them, was told the card was out of stock and got reimbursement. The alternative of prepayment for being on a waiting list was a too high risk for my taste.

Meanwhile, US trade war has resulted in an 25% US import tariff for GPUs. I might not care but Asus has taken this chance to raise their GERMAN RTX 3000 prices by €100, apparently in an attempt to let Germans pay a good part for US customers. This is not the first OEM scalping incident.

Needless to say, currently RTX 3080 is unavailable in Germany even at scalping prices. Apparently, the mining boom eats them all. Because, you know, if we believed Nvidia, demand among gamers would be the only cause for scarcity.

I get it: build your own GPU!