So this is what I posted over on the NVidia forums, and this is just the follow up on that post. Radeon here is your chance.
So today I tried to get one of your new 3080's. Lets just say I am not happy at the moment. While I understand limited supply, pandemic supply chain hits and the various and numerous other reasons for expected hiccups in the system. What happened to day was absolutely inexcusable from a customer service point of view.
How in the world do you even release an item for sale which you "KNOW" will have such a huge draw with such limited stock as obviously this one had to have had. This represents either a unimaginable lack of foresight and market understanding at best, or a deliberate attempt as many have hypothesized at market manipulation at worst. Neither of which is at all acceptable in a company of your size and scope.
As a west coaster I got up 15 mins ahead of release. I expected them to be sold out within 10 minutes and figured if I wanted one bad enough I needed to be up and ready at 6 am. But the reality was they were sold out in less than a second from my view. I have a 3 monitor setup and one monitor had best buy open, one had new egg, and the last had your own site open. I was pretty much spamming F5 one each screen. And not on a single screen did I ever see a cart option, every screen went from "Coming Soon" and "Notify Me" to "Sold Out" within a single refresh.
Also the fact that I live in Sacramento and yet I have still not found a single physical retailer who can say they ever had a single 3080 "in stock" as of your release date today.
At this point to partake in some hyperbole of my own, did you have only 1k units to sell at launch?
Now at this point I am torn. I have never owned a GPU that wasn't an Nvidia or affiliated card. Every card I have gotten has worked brilliantly and I have never regretted a purchase. But I feel very badly burnt by this experience, so much to the point where I am actually taking time to write a review and this post which in all honesty I am almost always too lazy to do.
There is also the very real concern that the "$700" price point that made this card so attractive will not survive this demand intact.
Now I am aware I am just a single customer and one who isn't prone to bashing products or companies as I have said earlier so normally the risk of my unhappiness may not be a big concern to you.
But for the record this is what I am going to go do. When I am done here I am going to for the first time ever go visit the AMD site. I am going to pretty much type up a post on their forums that outlines what I have above. And I am going to tell them for the first time ever my business is up for grabs depending on when they manage to actually launch their new line and the price point and performance versus yours it comes in at.
I strongly suggest that you get you supply issues worked out and get some cards back up that are actually available within a short window (that time frame being a reasonable expectation of restocking times.). Also that this particular disruption does not lead to a price hike due to demand excuse.
I am not a lost customer at this point. I have loved you products too much through too much of my life to drop at a single issue. But I am now an up for grabs customer. you will determine if I stay loyal or I have a Radeon card for my next upgrade.
Or you can just ignore me, I am just a single customer and as such will never make a huge difference to your bottom line. But then I will be one less person added to your bottom line because as you see I tend to find what I like and stick to it. Do you really want me giving AMD a chance?
